









' THE 

HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ Who is worse shod than the shoemaker’s wife ? 



NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



Copyright, igi4, 

BV 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 


Published September , IQ14 


OCT I 1914 


THE QUINN A BODEN CO. PRIM 
* ANWAY, N. i. 


©CI.A379774 


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TO 

GENTLEMEN OF THE BACK BENCHES 


FOREWORD 


I feel it is well for me to state that 
the chief person of this story is neither 
founded upon nor aimed to represent, 
however indirectly, any politician in real 
life. 


The Writer 


CONTENTS 


PART I 

PAGE 

LOVE AND ZEAL i 

PART II 

MARRIAGE AND FACTS ioi 

PART III 

THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 213 

PART IV 

THE HOUSE OF LIFE 325 



THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


PART I 

LOVE AND ZEAL 
I 

London never blinks its veteran eye so good-naturedly 
as when a young hothead from the provinces rides up on 
the spavin’d nag of poverty with a conviction in his heart 
that he is born to make a conflagration of the Thames. 

Two or three items in the brief inventory of his circum- 
stances might have driven a young man less heroic and 
centralized than Maurice Sangster to a harsh, even a 
despairing, view of London’s opportunities for ambition, 
vaulting or otherwise. To begin with, this young gentle- 
man lodged on the dismal side of a back-street in Lambeth 
with a cynical and disillusioned cabinet-maker, employed all 
day in the post-haste manufacture of “ genuine old furni- 
ture,” who entertained, probably in consequence of this 
deceptive vocation, a thoroughly musty and worm-eaten 
view of life, with which he took pains to acquaint his lodger 
on all possible, and generally the most inappropriate, occa- 
sions, such as the lodger’s departure for chapel or his return 
from a prayer-meeting. 

Mrs. Gowler, wife of this disillusioned cabinet-maker, 
although proficient in the production of a biennial little 
Gowler, was not, as she always declared, a “ professed 
cook ” ; she could neither boil a breakfast egg without reduc- 


2 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


ing it to a helpless compost of tepid water and liquid sul- 
phur, nor fry a piece of salt bacon without causing it to 
split into sundry hard and flying fragments at the first touch 
of a blunt knife. Further, the view from the window of 
the lodger’s attic was almost entirely blocked by an immense 
and somber tank of water, with a hooded spout sticking out 
of its grimy wooden cover like a black toadstool that had 
shot up and overgrown its strength ; so that, while the soar- 
ing and romantic Mr. Sangster could hear perfectly well the 
shrill cries of multitudinous little Gowlers in the back-yard 
below, he was denied the pleasure of emptying his jug of 
water on these invisible disturbers of his peace, was made 
to take the air of Nature at all seasons of the year through 
the damping filter supplied by the reek of the cistern, and 
could only see the moon with comfort by standing on a 
cane-bottomed chair and craning his head between a thin 
window-sash that jammed half-way down in its frame and 
a very thick bulk of Venetian blind that refused to go up 
as high and taut as its inventor intended. 

Of the furniture in this room, it may faithfully be re- 
ported that it was conducive neither to golden dreams nor 
to ordinary comfort. Probably the entire stock would not 
have fetched five-and-twenty shillings at an auction, even 
if Lot 4, a framed picture of Fred Archer winning the 
Derby on Bend Or; Lot 5, an over-mantel, once of ebony 
and gilt, but now reduced to a condition of plain deal which 
had seen blacker days; Lot 6, a patch of striped drugget 
which struck uncommonly damp to naked feet first thing 
in the morning and last thing at night ; Lot 7, a rickety chest 
of drawers which usually pitched forward when Mr. 
Sangster endeavored to get at his wardrobe, and precipitated 
the looking-glass into his chest and the smaller articles of 
his toilet into the most dusty and inconvenient corners of 
the room — even if all these things had been thrown in (and 
while it might have been an easy matter to throw them in, 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


3 


it would certainly have entailed! considerable ingenuity on 
the part of any realistic auctioneer to persuade anybody to 
take them out again), it is highly probable that the whole 
stock, with Maurice Sangster’s library and wardrobe in- 
cluded, would not have fetched the very modest figure men- 
tioned above. 

And yet the ardent soul of the young provincial was so 
centered in his splendid purpose that he was hardly con- 
scious of any serious drawback in his circumstances ; he felt 
for London one of those enthusiastic passions which only 
come with the magic of dreams to the pure and innocent 
at the dawn of adventure. 

One afternoon in May, a month or two after his arrival 
in London, this young man returned earlier than was his 
custom to the house of Mr. Gowler, let himself in with his 
latchkey, ran three stairs at a time up to his bedroom, threw 
off his coat and waistcoat as if he were in a vast hurry to 
fight somebody very much smaller than himself, proceeded 
to wash himself with a great deal of splashing and splut- 
tering, and a rather wanton indifference to the cost of soap, 
pulled open, at great risk to his life, the drawers that 
contained his best shirt-fronts and his Sunday clothes, 
dried himself, dressed himself, brushed himself, and then, 
after mature and studied reflection in the looking-glass, 
flew out of the room as hastily as he had entered, and 
made with all his might in the direction of Clapham. 

At Kennington Church he boarded a tram and mounted 
to the roof. He seated himself at the extreme end — not to 
stare down upon the pear-shaped backs of the horses, but 
to feel the fresh air about him, and to look forward into 
the golden distance without the obstruction of hats or the 
annoyance of tobacco-smoke. 

The pleasant swinging motion of the tram, the jangle of 
the bells on the horses’ collars, the broken clatter of their 
iron shoes on the granite, and the sense of definite repose 


4 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


after his feverish haste, ministered to the happiness of the 
young man, and produced in his mind a delightful sense 
of elation. He took off his hard, square-topped felt hat, 
pulled the tails of his frock-coat over his knees, stretched 
out his feet to the rail in front of him, and abandoned 
himself to a most flattering dream. 

He was sensible of looking his best. The turn-down 
collar at his neck was a new one ; the little black bow, which 
just showed a gilt stud above, had only been worn three 
times before. Although his waistcoat was cut remarkably 
low, his linen front was so neatly and invisibly fastened 
with small safety-pins that no hint was afforded of the flan- 
nel shirt below. His cuffs were like snow. The black kid 
gloves which he carried in his hands had never been worn. 
His shoes, polished in London by an expert bootblack before 
his return to his lodgings, were hardly disgraced by a speck 
of dust. He had spent twopence in a barber’s shop in 
getting his face as smooth as a baby’s. The smell of the 
soap which he had used in his lodgings rose like incense to 
his nose, and contributed to the sense of his refreshment 
and well-being. 

As the tram left the Swan at Stockwell, Sangster caught 
sight of himself sailing with a swan-like dignity in the shop- 
windows ; he approved what he saw. He was tall and thin, 
with a pale eager face, and long black hair which he oiled 
once a week. People were in the habit of looking at him. 
No one, I think, ever took him for an actor, but many 
imagined him to be an elocutionist. It was impossible to 
mistake him for a violinist, but quite possible to take him 
for a minister of religion. 

The shops were left behind. Comfortable houses, with 
trees and considerable gardens in front, occupied the left- 
hand-side of the road; smaller houses, nearer to the pave- 
ment, occupied the right. His dark eyes flashed as he kept 
them turned to the more ambitious left-hand side of the 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


5 

road, leaning over the side of the swinging, dipping tram 
to spell out the names of the houses, which were printed 
in gilt letters on the posts of the drive gates. At some little 
distance from the wide turn in the road which brings one 
opposite the railway arch of Clapham Station he sprang 
up, put his hat on his head, and descended eagerly from the 
tram. 

“ My word !” he exclaimed to himself. “ Why, they 
inhabit a perfect mansion.” 


II 

Phcebe had just laid by her embroidery, and was seated 
before a small mahogany tea-table in the drawing-room, 
pouring hot water from a rather elaborate silver kettle into 
an over superb silver teapot. 

When the door opened and a maidservant entered side- 
ways, with her fingers on the handle, Phcebe brightened 
at the prospect of a visitor. But when the maid announced 
the name of Mr. Maurice Sangster, and when that identical 
young gentleman entered the room in his best clothes, carry- 
ing his square-topped hat in one hand, and his new black 
kid gloves in the other, Phoebe Champness felt her heart 
stop beating, felt the color fly from her cheeks, felt the 
moisture gathering in clouds before her eyes, and felt her 
throat become suddenly so dry and parched and suffocating 
that she thought she would never be able to speak another 
word. 

With a wonderful effort she managed, as she rose and 
gave her hand to the visitor, smiling her wordless welcome, 
to tell the servant to bring another teacup. Then, asking 
Mr. Sangster to take a chair, she sat hastily down before 
the little mahogany tea-table and busied her trembling hands 
with the tea-things. 


6 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“You have taken me,” she said, in her very low and 
gentle voice, glancing up at him for a moment, with a warm 
smile, for the blood had now resumed its normal circulation 
of her little system, “ quite by surprise. I had no idea you 
were in London, none whatever.” 

“ You have not forgotten me, I hope, Miss Champness?” 
he asked, with a tenderness that was unmistakable. 

She thought for a moment before replying. “ No,” she 
said ; “ I have forgotten nobody I used to know in the old 
days.” 

He said : “ I shall certainly never forget our association 
in Derby. Whatever Fate may have in store for me, wher- 
ever my ambition may carry me, I shall always remember 
those days.” 

The servant arrived with the additional teacup on a silver 
salver. Phoebe and Maurice were silent while she was in 
the room, much to the young woman’s delight and the sub- 
sequent excitement of the kitchen. 

“ The tea is only just made,” said Phoebe. “ It has stood 
scarcely a minute.” 

Maurice put his hat on the floor, laid his gloves across the 
crown, and drew his chair nearer to the table. He had 
chosen the smallest and most humble chair in the room. 
Most of the other chairs seemed to say to him, “ Don’t sit 
on us, if you please;” while the handsome footstools de- 
posited over the Brussels carpet seemed to be saying, “ We 
are not for your feet.” The young man felt that the marble 
mantelpiece thoroughly despised him; that the great ugly 
pictures in their gilt frames were looking down upon him ; 
that the glass cabinets knew his origin; and that the mag- 
nificent brass chandelier was perfectly acquainted with all 
the details of Mr. Gowler’s establishment in Lambeth. But 
chief of all his causes for uneasiness and self-consciousness, 
far exceeding anything else in that big room, pompously 
furnished in solid unemotional bad taste, far exceeding 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


7 

every inanimate decoration, every soulless splendor, every 
static evidence of prodigious wealth, was Phoebe Champness 
herself, the living, breathing, fluttering, awfully dynamic 
Phoebe, who had become, since he last saw her, a lady of 
fashion, and unquestionably one of the beauties of the 
Metropolis. 

“ I dare say you are wondering,” he inquired, “ why I 
am in London. Thank you ; two lumps.” 

“ Tell me,” she said. 

He rallied the Radical within his bosom, threw off the 
inconvenient suggestions of the grand furniture surround- 
ing him like so many policemen, noting down every word 
he said to be used as evidence against him, and, taking the 
teacup from her, began at once to use his spoon and speak 
at the same time. 

“ Well, Miss Champness,” he said, “ to begin with, Derby 
was too small for me. It hampered me; it crushed me. If 
I had stayed there another month, it would have suffocated 
me. I took steps to escape. I determined to break free 
from the pettiness of that environment ; and now I am free. 
I am a Londoner, and the world is before me, the path of 
glory shining in the sun ! ” 

He laughed, helped himself to some buttered scone, and 
then, remembering his religious obligations, said : “ Forgive 
my rhetoric. I am on fire with ambition. Shall we ask a 
blessing? ” 

They both rose from their chairs, he on one side and she 
on the other of the silver tray, the silver kettle, and the 
silver teapot. They bowed their heads over the table, and 
Mr. Sangster asked a blessing, which, perhaps, was more 
in the nature of a three minutes’ discourse than a momentary 
acknowledgment of Divine Providence. 

She was thinking, while he spoke so contemptuously of 
Derby — that happy, beautiful, and friendly town of her 
childhood — thinking of the days when she taught with him 


8 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


in the same Sunday-school, watched him in chapel as he 
conducted visitors here and there, distributing hymn-books 
among them, collecting alms at the conclusion of the service, 
and praying so fervently, so eloquently, at the subsequent 
prayer-meetings. She was thinking, too, of how they would 
talk together in the Sunday-school, how they occasionally 
met in the streets of Derby, how they sometimes walked for 
a little distance side by side, and how she would very often 
go up to her bedroom and sit at the open window wondering 
to the sentimental lilt of the more melancholy hymn-tunes 
whether it could even be possible for a solicitor’s daughter 
to marry the son of a newsagent, however handsome, 
romantic, and pious. 

And as she thought of these things, her simple, rather 
wistful, and Quakerish little face became almost pretty. 

They sat down after the grace, and began to eat in silence. 
His blessing had recalled the past very vividly to her mem- 
ory, and she was profoundly moved. 

“ Can you guess,” he asked, picking up a piece of scone 
from his waistcoat and putting it in his mouth, “ what I am 
doing in London ? ” 

He looked up as he spoke, young, earnest, eager, full of 
a self-confidence which filled her half with admiration and 
half with fear for him. He saw how pretty she looked, was 
aware in some degree of the feelings with which he inspired 
her, and began to think that his dream was possible in spite 
of the grand furniture. 

And yet he doubted. She had become so completely a 
lady of London. Beyond all doubt, she moved in the most 
exclusive circles of Clapham society. Her father was now 
a man of the highest reputation and fabulous wealth; he 
was probably acquainted with members of Parliament, and 
attended the great social functions of the Liberal Party. 
Phoebe would no doubt marry an aristocrat and become a 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


9 


favorite of Mr. Gladstone, perhaps be photographed with 
him on the terrace of Hawarden Castle. 

Nevertheless — unfortunate and stubborn fact in a situa- 
tion already aggravated by other difficulties — he loved her 
with clamant hunger and thirst. He had loved her as a 
boy in Derby, had dreamed about her, written poems about 
her beauty, paced guiltily at night in front of her father’s 
double-fronted villa residence looking up at the rim of gas- 
light round the upper windows as though those windows 
had been the enchanted casements of Venus. And now, 
with her delicate, soft brown hair dressed in that delicious 
manner; and now, in this most elegant and bewitching 
dove-colored dress, with an amethyst brooch in the lace on 
her breast, gold bracelets on her wrists, and a gold chain 
round her neck ; and now, with this sense of dignity, grace, 
magnificence, and a woman’s soul breathing from her, visi- 
ble in all her gestures, audible in the tones of her voice — ah ! 
how much more did he love her, how infinitely more did 
he desire to pluck the stars of glory out of heaven and lay 
them all at her feet ! But how wild a dream ! 

Her heart thrilled with hope when he asked her with so 
much confidence if she could guess his occupation in Lon- 
don. She looked at him expectantly, shook her head very 
prettily, and said, “ Tell me,” inquiringly. 

With great seriousness he replied : “I am organizing 
the political side of Nonconformity. I am welding, Miss 
Champness, into one tremendous and overwhelming syn- 
thesis the scattered and dismembered politics of the Free 
Churches.” 

A shade of disappointment dulled her bright eyes. “ I 
thought,” she said gently, “ that perhaps you were training 
for the ministry.” 

“ Ah ! ” he exclaimed, “ you remember my old ambition — 
my first, my earliest, my very dearest and most precious 
ambition. But, Miss Champness, I have thought this mat- 


10 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


ter out. There is no great opening there, no national and 
universal opening for a consuming ambition ; and now the 
Lord has opened another door.” 

She put out her hand to take his teacup. “ I remember,” 
she said, glancing surreptitiously at the pattern made by 
the tea-leaves on the side of the cup, for she was just a 
little superstitious — not seriously, of course — “ I remember 
how we all used to think that one day you would be a 
famous preacher.” 

“ And even now,” he said, with kindling eyes, his pale 
face flushing with pleasure, “ that first ambition revisits and 
takes possession of my soul. When I go to some of these 
huge London chapels — Newman Hall’s, for instance, or 
Spurgeon’s — and see the vast congregation filling all that 
mighty space, I feel again the passion of the old call, the 
inspiration of that earliest ambition, and I am inclined — 
almost inclined — to become a preacher.” He took his tea- 
cup from her hands, helped himself to a slice of Genoa cake 
with almonds on the top, and continued : “ But I am satis- 
fied that the real call for me is in another and more stormful 
direction. I feel assured in my heart and soul that religion 
has got to be organized on a political basis. We shall get 
nothing done by preaching. Our work, Miss Champness, is 
to dominate the Liberal Party, and force it, drive it, compel 
it, to execute our wishes. That’s the future of Noncon- 
formity. And in the providence of God I believe it is also 
the future of Maurice Sangster.” 

He began to eat his cake, and she looked down at the tea- 
tray, fluttering, wondering, and perplexed. “ It sounds,” 
she said, touching the edges of saucers and the handles of 
teaspoons with her fingers, “ very important and serious 
work.” 

“ The work of a fighter, Miss Champness, an Ironside of 
the nineteenth century. You are right. It is serious work, 
grand work, a man’s work, and I am up to my eyes in it ! ” 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


ii 


For some moments they were silent, and then Maurice 
said to her, rising in a bent attitude to empty cake-crumbs 
from his waistcoat on to the silver tray: “You must feel 
how different London is from Derby. Don’t you love the 
bigness and the rush of London — the seething of millions of 
minds, the pressure of millions of bodies, the breathing of 
millions of souls ? Ah, what an inspiration it is ! And your 
house here ! It is a mansion. This sumptuous room, for 
instance. How different from your father’s villa in Derby ! ” 

She smiled as she answered : “ I was just as happy in the 
old home.” 

He shook his head skeptically. “ Just as happy, perhaps ; 
but you can’t help feeling that this is on a grander scale, that 
you are nearer to the great heart of humanity. Why, it’s 
splendid ! Doesn’t your brother like it? Doesn’t he feel the 
rapture of life in London ? By the way, how is he ? I hope 
very well.” 

“Leonard?” she inquired. “Yes, thank you, he’s very 
well indeed. He’s at Oxford, you know.” 

Maurice smiled indulgently. “ Oxford ! ” he exclaimed. 
Then he said forcefully: “ I am of one mind with Carlyle: 
a man’s best university is a library of standard authors. 
Bohn is my Oxford and my Cambridge; it gives me all I 
want. But Oxford men — well, they seem to me either 
ruffians of a most coarse and brutal nature, or mere posing 
dilettantes of an effeminate and namby-pamby character. 
Truly, I’m glad I never went to Oxford. Cromwell’s my 
hero. We want fellows like that. Men who can do things. 
Big grappling men, giants! Heroes who can take hold of 
a situation and shape it with hands of iron. 

“ ‘ Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour— 

England hath need of thee ! ' 

But Oxford men! After all Miss Champness, what is the 
use, what can be the use, in an age of strenuous commercial- 


12 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


ism and political upheaval, of Latin and Greek? Why- 
bolster up these old dead languages ? Is not the whole thing 
a kind of esthetic pose, like bamboo furniture and fans on 
the wall ? What do working men care for Latin and Greek ? 
What is the utility of perished languages to a democracy 
rising from death into life? And then, there’s the social 
influences of a place like Oxford. Wholly bad! It makes 
snobs. Don’t you agree with me? Look, for example, at 
the clergymen of the Established Church, ministers of the 
Christian religion, forsooth! Where will you find such 
exclusiveness, such petrified snobbery ? ” 

“ There is always that danger, of course,” she answered 
gently, marveling at his eloquence, and so pleased to be 
talked to and consulted as a rational person of some import- 
ance in the world. “ But I don’t think,” she added, with a 
smile, “ that Oxford will make a snob of Leonard. He’s so 
solid.” 

“ What does he intend to do in the world ? ” 

“ I think he will join my father.” 

“ Your father is a great man nowadays. A huge business, 
I am told. Interests all over the globe. I have been think- 
ing about him. Do not say anything to him just at present, 
but later on I think I may have propositions to make which 
will please him. You see, Miss Champness, your father is 
organizing the wealth of Nonconformity, while I am organ- 
izing the politics of Nonconformity. He can help me, but I 
also can help him. We won’t hurry things. We w T on’t be 
precipitate. But wait, you will see. Great things are 
ahead.” 

She was quite captivated, her faith in him growing with 
every minute. She had hoped he might have been entering 
the ministry, because she did not think her father could 
object to her marrying a pastor; but without knowing very 
much about politics, it seemed to her that if Maurice could 
speak so assuredly of his position in the world, likening it to 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


i3 


the position occupied by her father, and hinting that he and 
Mr. Champness might do great things together, surely this 
was even better than the pastorate. 

She said quite cheerfully that she was sure her father 
would be glad to see him, and Maurice inquired if Mr. 
Champness had changed at all. 

“ No, not in the least,” she replied. “ He is busier and 
more occupied, of course; but he is just the same in himself. 
I don’t think he will ever change or modify his opinions.” 

“Thank God for that!” ejaculated Maurice; “for your 
father, Miss Champness, is the best type we’ve got of Vic- 
torian Nonconformists — sound Radicals, practical men of 
business, faithful Dissenters. We want every one we have 
got.” 

He rose with energy and said : “ Shall we return 

thanks?” 

After this grace, they stood in awkward silence for 
a moment. Then she said, looking up at him: “Would 
you like to see the garden? We’ve got quite a nice piece 
at the back.” 

He remained looking at her, his eyes shining, his face 
slightly flushed, a gentle smile at his lips. He was happy. 
He was warm with emotion. He was full of thanksgiving. 
“Yes,” he said; “let us walk together.” 

When they were walking in the garden he said to her: 
“ Do you think it very bold of me to call upon you, Miss 
Champness ? ” 

“ Why should I ? ” she replied very sweetly. 

“You are the daughter of a rich man,” he answered, 
“ and I — well, at present I am at the bottom of the ladder, 
poor, and the son of a newsagent.” 

“ What does that matter ? ” she interrupted. 

“ Do you think like that ? ” he asked eagerly. 

“ Of course I do. I don’t think class distinctions ought 
to exist. We’re all one in the sight of God. We ought to 


H 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


help each other, instead of separating into classes and 
groups. Humanity ought to be a brotherhood.” 

“ I am glad to hear you say that ! ” he exclaimed, wav- 
ing his black kid gloves in the air. “ You don’t know how 
glad I am. I was afraid fashionable life might have spoilt 
you. But your views are my views. We’re going to smite 
the Tories hip and thigh. We’re going to humble the pride 
of the Established Church. We’re going to smash the 
power of the landowners ; and the real brotherhood of man 
will come in our lifetime — in your lifetime and my life- 
time, Miss Phoebe. Gladstone’s preparing the way. His 
successor will open the gates of heaven.” 

She nodded her head, smiled, and said : “ I’m afraid I 
don’t understand politics very much. All my time is taken 
up with the work at the chapel. But I’m glad you are so 
hopeful.” 

They were still walking in the sunshine of the garden 
when Mr. Humphry Champness arrived from the City. 
They looked up at the same time, and saw him standing 
by one of the open French windows of the drawing-room, 
regarding them. They both hurried forward, and he stood 
watching their approach. 


Ill 

Mr. Humphry Champness, financier and solicitor, never 
knew what it was to be ill. His digestion was perfect. His 
faculties, kept always active and alert, were never at a fault. 
He lived unconsciously by rule, wise habits in youth having 
established for him an elaborate ritual of existence, which 
he obeyed without the sense of obedience. And he held 
that every man might be as well and fit — not as able, of 
course — as he was, always had been, and anticipated being 
to the end of his life. 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


15 


He would say to his friends: “If I am ever ill, I’m 
too busy to know it.” In addressing a young men’s meet- 
ing, he would say to his respectful audience, after a pre- 
liminary reference to the grace of God: “Cultivate in 
yourselves the feeling that you are getting on in the world. 
Put by your money. Save something every week. Always 
be a little richer than you were. Believe me, the finest 
medicine in the world is the feeling of prosperity. It is 
only the man who has got on, or the man who feels that 
he never will, or never can, get on, who falls a victim to 
depression and imaginary illness. Never retire. Stick to 
business. Die in harness.” 

He was a tall, broad-shouldered, upstanding, clean- 
shaven man, rather hard of feature, slightly cold of eye, 
and certainly of a forbidding firmness as regards the mouth ; 
nevertheless, a fine, handsome, dignified pillar of our com- 
mercial greatness — a man who would have looked well on 
the Government Bench, who would have admirably become 
a judge’s wig and gown, who might even have passed in 
apron and gaiters for a bishop who had been a school- 
master. No one could have said of him what Richter said 
so charmingly of another man, that his face was a thanks- 
giving for his former life and a love-letter to all mankind. 
Rather might one have said with Tourguenieff that he had 
the air of his own statue erected by national subscription, 
and upon that statue, perhaps, might truly have been en- 
graved the epigram on a French statesman: “ He spent his 
life in coming to the rescue of the strongest.” Nevertheless, 
this great, honorable, and fearless financier, who had the 
cold, unemotional temperament of all great gamblers, was 
a fine, impressive personality, contact with whom braced the 
faculties of the weak, and brought a sense of shame to the 
dabbler and the coward. 

He was entirely without the weakness of sentiment, ex- 
cept in the domestic and religious spheres. Outside his 


i6 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


home and outside his chapel, he regarded humanity only as 
the servants of Capital. His contempt of the liberal pro- 
fessions was only equaled by his devotion to the Liberal 
Party. He despised book-learning as he despised the Es- 
tablished Church, and hated art as he hated the Roman 
Catholics. Life for him was, very obviously, a solemn 
business. He could not understand how men could paint 
pictures, write poetry, and chatter about architecture, furni- 
ture, and china, while there was real work waiting to be 
done in the world, and the Judgment Day loomed nearer 
every hour in the perspective of the future. By real work, 
he meant the civilizing of heathen races, the development 
of commerce, the reform of such abuses as touched his 
religion and his social position, and the abolition of all wars 
and all tariffs of every kind and description. 

He had succeeded as a young man of eight-and-twenty 
to his father’s business in Derby. At thirty-five he had 
made it one of the best practices in the Midlands, with the 
rightly deserved reputation of being as upright, sensible, 
and acute a man of business as you could find anywhere 
in England. At this time he came into financial relations 
with a London solicitor who enjoyed the confidence of 
many wealthy people in the world of Nonconformity. The 
relations of Mr. Champness with this lawyer were amiable 
and profitable. The connection between them continued 
for six or seven years, with increasing advantage to both 
parties ; at the end of this period the London solicitor pro- 
posed to the Derby solicitor an amalgamation of the two 
firms, and the arrangements were completed with that 
wonderful dispatch which only lawyers can accomplish 
when managing their own affairs. For five years Mr. 
Champness continued to live in Derby, merely visiting 
London on particular occasions ; but early in his forty-ninth 
year the business in London had swollen to such prodigious 
proportions that he was obliged to pull up his roots and 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


17 


remove his family to the Metropolis. The death of his 
wife a few months before, to whom he had been fervently 
attached, made it easier for him to make this departure 
from his native town. 

At the age of fifty- three he was one of the most re- 
spected of the smaller financiers in London. His interests 
now covered the whole world, with the exception of British 
colonies, in which he had no faith, and for which his political 
traditions denied him any sympathy. His own personal 
capital was infinitely larger than his son and daughter had 
any idea of; his partners were not even aware of his true 
position. He himself could see no reasonable limit to the 
growth of his fortune. He gave liberally, but not osten- 
tatiously, to the charities of his chapel and to the funds 
of the Free Churches. He took the chair at meetings, 
read the lessons in the chapel, gave addresses to young men, 
and encouraged missionary energy. He was in his office 
every morning at a quarter-past nine, and he seldom left 
it until six. 

It was either fortunate or unfortunate for Maurice 
Sangster, as the sequel will show, that the financier had 
returned at an earlier hour than usual in order to take a 
high tea before setting out to speak at a very important 
meeting in the Exeter Hall. 


IV 

When Sangster had departed, not quite sure whether 
he was standing on his head or his heels, Mr. Champness 
said to his daughter : “ I have no doubt that this young 
man will get on in the world; he has thrust, drive, and he 
does not know his place; but until he has begun to get on, 
do not encourage him to visit us.” 


i8 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


As for Maurice, burning with love for Phoebe, and 
persuading himself to believe that he had made a favorable 
impression on the financier, he walked all the way back to 
his Lambeth lodgings, feeling himself to be more inspired 
than he had ever yet been to set the Thames on fire and 
win this very peerless lady for his wife. 

He said to himself : “ I will go back, write hard for an 
hour, take a mouthful of supper, and then read till mid- 
night.” This was his preparation for setting the Thames 
on fire. He was no dreamer and no fool. He had realized 
in youth, as a journalist in Derby and a member of a 
debating society, that to make one’s way in the world one 
must have Whittaker’s Almanack by heart, know thoroughly 
the more recent records of Parliamentary History, and be 
able to speak in public with assurance and absolute knowl- 
edge of one’s facts. 

Unhappily for this ambitious young man, he found the 
door of Mr. Gowler’s house standing open, and Mr. Gowler 
himself sitting in his shirt-sleeves on the lowest step of the 
staircase, smoking a dull and charred briar pipe, with his 
back leaned against the wall, and one of his carpet slippers 
posed against the banisters. 

At sight of Maurice, Mr. Gowler, who was fat, untidy, 
and of a wheezing habit in the matter of respiration, took 
his pipe from his mouth, elevated it slowly some few inches 
above his head, and exclaimed in a husky voice : “ Ah ! I 
was just thinking about you.” 

With the utterance of this welcome, delivered in that 
particular tone of voice which implies “ more to follow,” 
Mr. Gowler put his disreputable pipe back into his mouth, 
wheezed heavily, became purple in the face, and, clutching 
hold of the banisters with one hand and pushing himself 
up by means of the wall with the other, contrived at last 
to get painfully upon his slippered feet. After balancing 
himself for a moment, snorting and creaking as he swung 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


19 

backwards and forwards, Mr. Gowler again took the pipe 
from his mouth, pointed the moist stem in the direction of 
his lodger’s linen front, and jerking his head towards the 
basement, said : “ Maud’s back.” 

Ominous words for the single gentleman! To another 
person — a stranger, for instance, from some distant coun- 
try — these words might very easily have been taken to refer, 
with some dark and cabalistic significance, to the shoulder- 
blades of a lady named Maud, age and social status uncer- 
tain ; but to Maurice Sangster, the studious single gentle- 
man, the passionate lodger, these words meant only one 
thing — they meant that Fate had conspired to rob him of 
his peace. 

For the lady referred to as Maud was Mr. Gowler’s 
eldest daughter, a housemaid, and, unfortunately for Mr. 
Sangster’s happiness, Maud Gowler had confided to her 
mother, speaking with her habitual nasal drawl, and a 
strong South London accent : “ Why, I fell in love with 

him as soon as ever I set eyes on him ! ” The intimation 
of her passion having been conveyed that same evening to 
Mr. Gowler, the old gentleman, with the bile of Voltaire, 
the heart of Schopenhauer and the brain of Machiavelli, 
had set himself to work at the business of getting the young 
couple established in what he termed a “ connubial misun- 
derstanding.” “ Mind you,” he said on one occasion, speak- 
ing to Maurice of his daughter’s fascination for men, “ she’s 
at an earning age now, and I shouldn’t be altogether pleased 
to see her snapped up, after all the money I’ve laid out on 
her; but snapped up she will be, and quick — very quick. 
Lord bless you ! a girl like her doesn’t have to stand on one 
leg singing, ‘ Dilly-dilly-dilly-dilly, come and be killed.’ 
What a cook ! What an air with her ! And what a saving, 
sensible, and economical disposition ! Why, she’s worth 
fifty of the ordinary sort you see walking about with bows 
on their shoulders and ribbons streaming out behind like 


20 THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

halter-ropes hanging round a donkey’s neck — fifty of 
them!” 

This paragon of a daughter was always going away and 
always coming back. The younger children were never 
surprised when they missed her of a morning, and heard 
the news, “ Maud’s gone ” ; nor were they astonished when 
they heard the announcement, “ Maud’s back,” and found 
their eldest sister sitting at the kitchen tea-table, making her 
mother’s hair stand on end with accounts of her last 
mistress’s enormities. The curious thing about Maud 
Gowler was this: although of a very disparaging and un- 
emotional nature, she invariably described each fresh place 
on her visit home in the hours of a night out as a perfect 
paradise, making herself to be the bosom friend of the 
mistress and the favorite pet of the children ; whereas when 
the phrase was sounded, “ Maud’s back,” nobody could 
possibly exceed in bitterness, contempt, and the most acrid 
indignation, her judgment on that household from which 
she had just departed with a month’s wages in her purse. 

When Mr. Gowler said to Maurice Sangster, “ Maud’s 
back,” he winked his right eyelid, and pointed with the 
stem of his pipe to the basement stairs. “ Come down and 
have a bite,” he added — a corollary of the previous sen- 
tence, which might have suggested to anyone ignorant of 
the true circumstances that Maud had once been a familiar 
and favorite porker, and was now reduced to an edible 
condition of boiled bacon. 

Maurice smiled, shaking his head. “You must really 
excuse me,” he said firmly — “ you really must.” 

Mr. Gowler laid a detaining hand on his arm, looked 
up perplexedly into the pale, ecstatic face of his lodger, 
and said: “But why? I say, why? See here, now; a 
little society would do you good; I’m sure it would.” 

“ No doubt, Mr. Gowler, no doubt. But I have work 
to do. You must excuse me.” 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


21 


“ A word as to that/’ answered Gowler, putting back 
his pipe into his mouth. “ Now, why do you study so 
hard? What’s the good of it? Have you ever considered 
study from this practical point of view : Life ain’t worth 
it? What a man wants in life is just natural ability, noth- 
ing more ; anything else makes a fatigue of it. A wise man 
sits down comfortable, and lets the wind blow him along; 
he don’t go bothering his brains to know more than comes to 
them in the way of Nature while he’s enjoying of himself.” 

In vain did the single gentleman endeavor to escape. 
Gowler was not inexorable, but he was pathetic. “ Look 
here, Sangster,” he said at last, lowering his voice, looking 
over his shoulder towards the basement, and shuffling a 
step nearer, “ the ladies expect it of you. Just a minute, 
my son — just a minute.” 

Can you imagine the feelings of Maurice Sangster, 
fresh from the superb refinement of Phoebe’s drawing- 
room in Clapham, and thirsting to be filling his mind 
with the incontrovertible statistics of Whittaker’s Almanack 
in order that he might the sooner win that exquisite lady 
for his wife — I say, can you imagine poor Maurice’s feel- 
ings as he followed the tedious back of Mr. Gowler down 
the dark and odorous basement stairs, and entering the hot 
and steaming kitchen of Mrs. Gowler, came face to face 
with Maud in her Sunday best? 

It was like Maurice to shake off his annoyance, to 
smile pleasantly on the Gowler family, and to take a chair 
at the table with all the air of a man thoroughly happy and 
prepared to be hearty. 

“You two,” said Mrs. Gowler, who was nursing a baby, 
and had two other children standing at her knee for com- 
fort — “ you two look as if you’ve just come from a wedding. 
Just! You do. Straight!” 

“ Ah ! ” exclaimed Maurice, wishing to make the best of 
things. “ I’ve just come from taking tea with a young 


22 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


lady at whose wedding I should not in the least mind being 
present, provided I was just a little nearer to her than the 
best man ! ” 

There was an awkward pause for a moment, no one 
laughing at the witticism. Then Maud said in her cynical, 
drawling fashion, “ Why, I believe he’s in love ! Oh, lor ! 
I should never have thought that.” 

“Wouldn’t you?” asked Maurice. “Why not? A 
man ought to be in love; it gives force to his will, energy 
to his purpose, fire to his work; but in the case of a strong 
man, love must never come between him and his destiny.” 

Mrs. Gowler looked helplessly from Maud to her husband, 
and from her husband to Maud, rocking the infant she was 
feeding as though it needed comfort for a broken heart. 

“ Sangster,” said old Gowler, munching his lips, “ don’t 
you make a fool of yourself. Don’t you go and kill yourself 
for the sake of ambition that will only come back and catch 
you a whack on the right eye, like a ta-ra-ra-ra-boomderang. 
You enjoy yourself. Take life as it comes to you, same as 
I do. Why, Bedlam’s chock full of fellers like you, who 
thought they were going to be Dick Whittingtons, poor 
fools! and now they do nothing but mew and spit like his 
cat. Ambition’s a slow poison. It begins with honey, and 
ends with a bee in the bonnet. Chuck it, my son, chuck it.” 

Maurice laughed, and let fly at old Gowler with all 
his might. He talked of ambition like a poet : spoke of the 
injustice in the world, of the tyrannies, persecutions, and 
bitter wrongs of the poor. He asked Gowler, he asked Mrs. 
Gowler, he asked Miss Maud Gowler, one might almost 
say that he asked all the biennial little Gowlers — for the 
sweep of his right arm embraced the whole kitchen — 
whether it was not a fine thing, and a right thing, and a 
god-like thing, to rise up and utterly smash, overturn, and 
grind into pulverized dust the human fiends responsible for 
all this anguish and cruelty. 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


23 

“ Oh, hark at him ! ” cried Maud Gowler. “ I never 
knew a man like you for words — never, I didn’t. I was 
only saying to my last mistress, telling her about home, 
and as how mother kept a lodger, that you was really 
a torrent of words, and that when anything set you right 
off, they fair gushed out of your mouth, like water out of 
a pipe.” 

She was above the average height, very thin, flat-chested, 
and of a painfully bilious complexion. Her cheeks were 
often flaming red in the center, while the rest of her face 
remained its wonted gamboge. She was brown-eyed, dark- 
haired, with a little tight fringe, which ran up from one 
ear, made the curve of her forehead, and descended with 
a slope to the other ear. She carried her eyebrows high, 
elevated her eyelids and depressed the corners of her lips. 
In walking, she shook her shoulders from side to side, and 
when daintily inclined, held her arms crooked at the elbows, 
the forearms extended in front of her, the hands flapping 
at the wrists. She had the settled expression of one who 
is always expecting a reproof, and is always ready with a 
back-answer. 

“ Torrents of words and gushes of words,” said old 
Gowler, “ is only words, after all ; they don’t alter the facts 
of life. What’s the use,” he demanded, “ of talking about 
life ? What we’ve got to do is to live it. Ah ! Get what we 
can out of it. Enjoy ourselves. Take things easy. Mind 
our own business, and see that the other fellow minds his. 
Politics! — a lot of ’umbug. Here! do you know what 
makes me despise the working man more than anything 
else? — why, being took in by a lot of diddling windbags 
promising him something that will never come — ah! and 
something that never can come. Stop a bit ! I haven’t near 
finished yet. I’m a bit of a torrent myself when I come 
across a crazy fellow like you spoiling his life for a hokey- 
pokey. Now, I ask you, and you answer me. Has France 


24 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


-had a Revolution, or has it not? Is America a Republic, 
or is it not? Are the people in France any better off after 
their Revolution than the sensible, sober, and saving work- 
ing man in this country, without a revolution and under a 
monarchy, with an old-established aristocracy what spends 
money freely, attracts the American millionaires, and is 
good for trade? Tell me straight, now, a clever fellow like 
you — tell me, are there any poor people in France and in 
America? Fm asking for information. Now, you tell me. 
Are there? Oh, don’t you torrent and gush to me about 
politics! I know all about politics. And don’t you tell 
me about the wrongs of the poor. I know all about the 
poor. What’s the matter with the poor of this country? 
Sangster, I’ll tell you in one word. Beer, and nothing 
else.” 

Maurice attempted to deal point by point with this 
exordium, and, being a practiced debater with Whittaker 
at his fingers’ ends, would no doubt very easily have laid 
out Mr. Gowler and danced a triumphant peroration on his 
prostrate body. But, unfortunately, Gowler would keep 
answering and interrupting — rather effectively, too — and 
the last infant having finished its meal, and not liking it or 
feeling the heat of the kitchen after so much physical exer- 
tion, would not stop howling; and the boy Gowlers, having 
entered upon a lively dispute of their own concerning 
the ability of Dr. W. G. Grace to deal with Spofforth’s 
bowling, would not be quiet, in spite of Maud’s repeated 
instruction that they should hold their noise; therefore in 
such a pandemonium as this it was quite impossible for 
the ardent Radical to bring the artillery of his eloquence 
into effective operation. He gave it up, let Gowler have it 
as he would, and rising at last from his chair, suggested that, 
though they might disagree as to politics, at least they were 
all of one opinion as touching their dependence on God; 
he suggested that they should join him in prayer. 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


25 

Gowler, as was usual with him, protested that he 
had no faith in prayer, saying that nobody knew where 
we came from or where we were going to, and that if a 
man didn’t look after himself, nobody else would do it for 
him. But these sentiments were decidedly unpopular; and, 
besides, to speak truth, old Gowler rather liked to have the 
single gentleman holding forth in his kitchen, with all the 
family kneeling round the table. It gave him, in some odd 
way, a sense of personal importance. 

Maud Gowler, who was certainly one of the worst- 
tempered women in the world, considered herself decidedly 
religious. She was Church of England and until the com- 
ing of Maurice had expressed very pointed contempt for 
Dissenters. On one occasion she said to him : “ They’re 
all religious in the place I’m now in — oh, terribly so ! Why, 
they’ve given all the boys Bible names — Jesse, Isaac, David, 
Alfred, Samuel.” And when Maurice corrected her and 
said that Alfred was not a Bible name, she had replied: 
“Not? — well, what about Alfred and the Cakes; that’s in 
the Bible, isn’t it ? ” — an answer which heightened his con- 
tempt for the Established Church. But Maud Gowler was 
always willing to kneel when he suggested prayer, and al- 
ways spoke so fervently of his eloquence in prayer that the 
tolerant and eager Maurice generously forgave her this 
ignorance of the Bible. On the present occasion Maud said : 
“ I feel as if someone had caught me a smack in the face, 
or as if I had dropped a shilling and picked up a ’appenny ; 
so perhaps prayer will do me a bit of good ; I’m sure I need 
it more than anyone else.” And she was first down. 

So they had prayer together, and Maurice prayed in a 
manner which he hoped might convert old Gowler from 
pessimism and Toryism. I am afraid the condition of poor 
Maud’s wounded heart did not occur to him. 

Alone in his own room, the zealous youth pulled a 
cane chair to the table in the window, buried his face in 


26 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


his hands, and with the gas fizzing over his head, gave 
himself to a momentary despair. 

Was it any use to try and alter things? 

And his own fortunes. Was it possible that the Gowler 
household represented his true position in the world ? 
Was it madness to dream that one day he might sit per- 
fectly at his ease in such a room as that splendid, dignified, 
and luxurious apartment where Phoebe sat every afternoon 
of her life at tea so naturally, so naturally? 

He tried to remember what he had said to her. Had he 
been too boastful? What would Leonard Champness say 
of him if she reported his views about Oxford? And Mr. 
Champness. Had that great man been cold, distant, patron- 
izing? Was his manner that of displeasure and dismissal, 
or merely the natural manner of a much-occupied and im- 
portant personage? He could not tell. He could not de- 
cide. There was nothing in Whittaker to help him here; 
nothing in Bohn’s Library to settle this dreadful problem, 
where indecision was torture. And that Gowler kitchen. 
Their familiarity, their ease, their assumption that he was 
no different from them, socially and intellectually. Ah, 
Phoebe, Phoebe! Phoebe in the dove-colored dress, with 
delicate lace round her neck, a gold chain hanging over her 
little shoulders, the silver tray crowded with silver tea- 
things in front of her. Ah, Phoebe, Phoebe ! — beautiful, 
fashionable, too ladylike Phoebe! 

He slid from the chair on to his knees, and prayed with 
groans for the strength which can overcome the world. 


V 

The value of a good manner, a cheerful disposition, and 
a gentlemanly taste in dress was perhaps never illustrated 
more strikingly than in the case of Mr. Christopher Jiggens, 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


27 


Born in Clapham, the son of an inoffensive old gentleman 
employed in Somerset House; educated in Clapham, at a 
small villa residence which made a praiseworthy but 
pathetic effort to support the Academic brass-plate on its 
iron railings; and married in Clapham to the daughter of 
a rather seedy individual who had a shorthand connection 
with one of the newspapers in London — Mr. Jiggens had 
all the distinction of manner and all the dignity of appear- 
ance which are to be found only in the highest circles of 
the Circulating Library. And such was the impression he 
made that while the young bloods about the Stock Exchange 
regarded him as the best dressed man in Old Broad Street, 
so unemotional and practical a person as Mr. Champness 
had fallen a very considerable way under his spell. The 
great financier had so far fallen under this ensorcellement 
as to take Mr. Jiggens out of the office of a stockbroker 
and to install him in his own office as his own private 
secretary, with the very handsome salary of £500 a year; 
and whenever Mr. Champness was dull of an evening or 
wanted taking out of himself, he would send one of the 
maids across the road with a request to Mr. Jiggens, who 
lived thus conveniently near at hand, that he should drop in. 

The truth is that besides being a very quick and clever 
fellow at his work, Christopher Jiggens in social life had 
all the valuable qualities of a Jack-in-the-box. Touch him 
definitely on the right spot, and he came out with a most 
surprising display of glittering good-humor; shut down the 
lid, and he gave no further trouble. The man’s tact, his 
intuitive sense of the mood required of him, was remark- 
able. He never irritated. He never bored. He never got 
in the way. Mr. Champness, according to his moods or 
the business in hand, would call him by four distinct names, 
and Mr. Jiggens would answer to all four with the perfect 
response of a circus poodle. When Mr. Champness ad- 
dressed him as “ Chris,” the secretary would let himself 


28 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


go, taking the liberties of a court jester; when it was a case 
of “ Christopher,” he pulled in, and revealed his sympa- 
thetic, filial, and domestic nature; but when the call came 
to “ Mr. Jiggens,” the secretary was prompt, serious, and 
brief, a very model of dispatch; “ Jiggens ” shut him up 
completely. 

Mrs. Jiggens would be invited to dine three or four 
times in the year; Mr. Jiggens would be commanded to 
drop in once or twice a week. He was invaluable. 

The more absorbed Mr. Champness became in his work 
of finance, the less interest he found in books and news- 
paper. He was a man who could busy but not amuse him- 
self. There were evenings in his life when time hung 
with a distinct heaviness on his hands, when Phoebe’s 
needlework and Phoebe’s gentle voice somewhat tried his 
nerves ; and on these occasions Mr. Champness would utter 
the command, “ Send over for Jiggens.” And Jiggens, 
entering the room without knowing the exact mood of his 
master, in less than a second would have established the 
most sympathetic connection with that laborious and mighty 
mind. 

At the beginning of their acquaintance, Mr. Champness 
had been troubled by the height of the Jiggens collar, the 
fancifulness of the Jiggens waistcoat, the sportiveness of 
the Jiggens spats, and the unmistakable influence of mili- 
tarism in the cut of the Jiggens coat; but he had come to 
put up with and tolerate these exuberances of the taking 
young man, had come finally to see in them a certain seem- 
liness, or at any rate, some degree of suitability in Jiggens, 
regarded as the secretary of a great financier — so completely 
did he depend upon Jiggens for that quickness, brightness, 
and amusement which he discovered to be a pleasant and 
healthful diversion for a dull evening. 

Mr. Champness, we may say, was one of those men who 
in private life can only open out in the society of subordi- 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


29 


nates. He had no desire to mix with his superiors, and in 
the company of his equals he could never be anything else 
but Champness the financier. With Jiggens, he could be 
anything he liked. 

One evening, with somewhat greater haste than usual, 
the summons was sent across the road for Jiggens to drop 
in. Mr. Champness had been thoroughly put about. He 
had returned in his usual good spirits from the city, had 
exchanged in the hall his boots for his slippers as was his 
custom, had sat down to dinner prepared to enjoy himself, 
and was, if anything, more disposed to conversation than 
was habitual with him. And in one moment the storm 
came. 

Phoebe mentioned that Maurice Sangster had called 
during the afternoon. 

“ What, again ? ” demanded Mr. Champness, opening his 
eyes very wide. “ Why, this makes the third time in three 
or four weeks. The fellow seems to live here ! What does 
it mean? He’s taking a great liberty, a very great liberty 
indeed.” 

Then, without waiting for Phoebe’s explanation, he gave 
his orders. “ Tell the servants,” he commanded, “ that next 
time this person calls he is to be shown into the dining- 
room, not into the drawing-room. I don’t want you to 
encourage falsehoods; you need not say that you are not 
at home if you are at home. Go and see him in the dining- 
room. Don’t ask him to sit down ; simply inquire his busi- 
ness. If this does not teach him his place, tell the servants 
to leave him standing in the hall, and conduct your inter- 
views there.” 

Phoebe, the most dutiful of daughters, the gentlest of 
acquiescent natures, looked up at her father, and said with 
genuine surprise : “ Oh, but that would be so unkind, 

papa ! ” 

“ Unkind ! ” he exclaimed, putting down his knife and 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


30 

fork, with the suddenness of real surprise and real annoy- 
ance. “ Unkind ! I don’t understand the meaning of the 
word in connection with a person like this. What do you 
mean, Phoebe ? Unkind ! ” 

“ After all,” said Phoebe, in her softest voice, “ he comes 
from our home. He was a member of our church. He 
taught with me in the Sunday-school. He’s very earnest, 
and very good.” 

“ Say no more about the matter,” said Mr. Champness. 
“ Our circumstances are not his circumstances. He is 
not to be encouraged.” 

The rest of the meal passed in silence, and Mr. Jiggens 
was sent for immediately afterwards. Jiggens told his 
wife it was one of the most difficult evenings he had ever 
spent. 

Phoebe obeyed her father, but she explained matters to 
Sangster. Her explanation was not wanting in loyalty to 
her father, and it was tactfully managed, but Sangster 
saw how the land lay. That interview in the dining-room 
precipitated matters. It brought the young people nearer 
to each other; it invested them both with a sense of 
romance ; it gave Sangster his first interest in diplo- 
macy. 

He did not call again at the house, but very often he and 
Phoebe met in Clapham Road. They went for walks to- 
gether. Sometimes they got as far as Tooting Common and 
Streatham before they realized how long a way they had 
gone. Almost unconsciously Phoebe found herself launched 
upon a sea of romance. 

She never mentioned these meetings to her father. When 
her conscience upbraided her for deception, as it did very 
sharply at the outset, she told herself that to avoid Maurice 
or to be cold in her demeanor towards him would be un- 
kind and unchristian. By the time her manner was dis- 
tinctly warm and intimate, conscience had ceased to trouble 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


3i 

her. She hurried to her meetings with this young hero 
of her heart; she thought of scarcely anything else all the 
long day ; and at night, after praying that God would bless 
and prosper him, she fell asleep to the most romantic 
dreams in which her position in the social world was un- 
flinchingly sacrificed on the altar of love. 

Maurice was careful not to make a formal profession of 
his feelings. He lived upon inference. His courtship was 
a brilliant insinuation. Once, when speaking of his work, 
he said to her : “ The day will come when your father will 
not only be willing to receive me into his house, but proud 
to welcome me as an honored guest.” She had the greatest 
faith in him. 

A shadow of misgiving crossed his mind on one occasion 
when she told him that her brother Leonard was coming 
back from Oxford, bringing three friends with him. 
Maurice might despise Oxford men, but as a penniless 
lover he feared their power. 

A week after this intimation, as Phoebe, Mr. Champness, 
and Christopher Jiggens were sitting in the drawing-room 
one evening, a servant entered the room and said that Mr. 
Maurice Sangster would be glad if he could speak to Mr. 
Champness for a few minutes. 

So astounded was the financier by this announcement, 
that he did not observe the amazement of Phoebe. Mr. 
Jiggens, looking from father to daughter, noticed with in- 
terest that Phoebe’s face was bent over her needle- 
work, that she was deadly pale, that her hands were 
trembling. 

“ What on earth does the fellow want ? ” demanded 
Champness, both hands on the arms of his chair, his feet 
drawn in. Then, loosening his body, stretching out his 
legs again, and with an impatient movement of his right 
hand, “ Tell him I’m engaged,” he said curtly. 

Conversation was not renewed, and Jiggens was only 


32 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


just beginning to adopt another manner suitable to the 
ruffled feelings of his master when the servant returned. 
“If you please, sir,” she said, “ the gentleman says it’s a 
matter of very great importance.” 

“Did you ever !” Mr. Champness checked the ex- 
clamation, and turning to Christopher, said : “ Here, Jig- 

gens, just go and see what the fellow wants. Don’t en- 
courage him. He’s a nuisance.” 

“ Right, sir,” exclaimed the prompt Jiggens, and without 
another word he was on his feet, and out of the room. 

He came back in five minutes’ time. “ A political mat- 
ter, sir,” he reported ; “ can only be mentioned to you 
yourself. Infinitely confidential, I am assured by the young 
gentleman.” 

Mr. Champness considered. Mr. Jiggens glanced at 
Phoebe. 

“ A political matter,” said Mr. Champness thoughtfully. 
“ What has he got to do with politics ? ” Then, with a nod 
of understanding : “ Ah, I remember ; yes, he is connected 
in some way with the politics of the Connexion.” He 
thought for a moment longer, rapping the fingers of one 
hand on the back of the other, his lips pursed, his face 
wrinkled with cogitation. Then he rose. “ I’ll go and see 
what he wants.” 

Jiggens sprang forward and opened the door. 


VI 

The dining-room was not a cheerful scene of operations 
for the youthful diplomacy of Maurice Sangster. All its 
advantages were decisively on the side of Mr. Champness. 
The awful solemnity and the grim inhospitable arrangement 
of the solid mahogany furniture, the Dore pictures in gilt 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


33 


frames on the gloomy red walls, the black mantelpiece, the 
Turkey carpet, the dull red curtains drawn across the tall 
windows, and particularly the one jet of gas burning at a 
contemptuous half-cock in the elaborate bracket over the 
dining-room table — these things were certainly calculated 
to damp the optimism and inconvenience the effrontery 
of any ordinary young man of humble circumstances forc- 
ing himself upon the attention of an extremely rich and 
formidable personage. 

But Maurice Sangster was a youth of unusual courage 
and extraordinary resource. He entered upon the conflict 
not only with a determination to win, but with the convic- 
tion in his heart that if beaten now, he would assuredly 
live to fight another day. 

Mr. Champness entered the room slowly, impressively, 
unwillingly. Maurice stood half-way towards the mantel- 
piece at the other end of the room, near the table, his hat and 
a roll of papers in his hand. He did not move effusively 
towards the great man, nor did he advance with trepidation. 
Depositing his hat on the table, and beginning to unroll his 
papers, he came immediately to the point, extending his 
hand confidently, bowing with just a touch of respect in the 
action, and saying: 

“ I am sorry to disturb you, Mr. Champness ; but the 
matter which brings me is important and urgent. I have 
found a constituency for you. I want you to stand for 
Parliament. If you will allow me to say so, we could not 
have a better man, and you could not have a more congenial 
constituency.” 

Mr. Champness was confounded, but he did not show a 
trace of surprise. He walked forward to one of the saddle- 
bag arm-chairs beside the hearth, and with a motion of his 
hand signified his pleasure that his visitor should be seated. 

Maurice drew one of the smaller chairs forward, and sat 
down close to the great man, facing him. 


34 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ Who told you,” asked Champness, “ that I wanted to 
enter Parliament?” 

“ No one,” answered Maurice. 

“ The idea has never entered my mind,” said Champness. 

“ You surprise me,” said Maurice. “ I should have 
thought that a gentleman in your position, holding such 
fine views on Dissent, would have had Parliament always 
before his mind, not as a goal of his ambition, but as his 
rightful place in the country, the pl#ce where he could 
best serve his Church and his nation.” 

“ The idea has never entered my mind.” 

“Allow me, then, to place it there, Mr. Champness.” 

“ I am a busy man, Mr. Sangster.” 

“No doubt of that, but you are also a religious man; 
you are not the man to shirk a duty. Come, Mr. Champness, 
what is to become of Dissent if men like you do not 
represent us in Parliament? We want our great men there, 
our strong men, our men of wealth and power. If 
we are not careful, very careful, let me tell you, 
Rome will one day come back and take possession of this 
country.” 

“ There is that danger, certainly,” said Mr. Champness. 

“ On the one hand, Infidelity, Atheism ! ” cried Maurice, 
warming up; “on the other, Ritualism plotting with Rome. 
Only the Free Churches can save Protestantism in this 
country.” 

“ Would you be so good as to light another gas ? ” asked 
Mr. Champness. “ It is rather dull in here. The matches 
are on the mantelpiece.” 

When Maurice returned to the hearth in the greater 
brightness of the second gas-jet, Mr. Champness said to 
him: “What is your position in this matter? Will you 
kindly explain that to me?” He crossed his legs, brought 
the fingers of his hands together, and quietly studied the 
face of his visitor. 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


35 


Maurice explained that he was organizing the political 
side of the Connexion ; that he was in touch with almost all 
the contestable constituencies; that he was on terms of 
growing intimacy with Liberal headquarters; that he prob- 
ably knew better than any man in England the political 
tendencies of Nonconformity; that he was in a position to 
introduce candidates ; and that he had a very excellent 
machinery for fighting elections. He then spoke glowingly 
of the constituency in question, informed Mr. Champness 
that the sitting Tory member, whose majority was only 
ninety-seven, intended to retire, and that a Liberal candi- 
date had not yet been adopted. He unrolled his papers, 
selected the necessary documents with great quickness, and 
read aloud certain very persuasive figures. 

Mr. Champness listened, and heard the important details 
of this communication; but his thoughts were busy with 
himself. The idea had never entered his mind. Should 
he adopt a Parliamentary career? Should he? He was 
flattered by the knowledge that his position in the world 
entitled him to consider such a matter. 

“ Have you spoken about me at Liberal headquarters ? ” 
he asked. 

“ Not yet. I have told them that I have got the very 
man in my mind, and I have hinted at your position.” 

“ My position! What do you mean by that? ” 

“ One of our foremost Nonconformists. A man of 
acknowledged power in the City of London. A gentleman, 
an organizer, and a Liberal through and through.” 

“ You must not exaggerate my importance, Mr. Sang- 
ster.” 

“ I am not here to flatter you, Mr. Champness. You 
know your own position better than I do. It is enough 
for me that you are the very man for the constituency, 
and one of the very best representatives of advanced Non- 
conformity we could have in the House of Commons.” 


36 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ Well, it’s a big undertaking.” 

“ Think where it will lead you. A baronetcy ” 

“ That does not weigh with me. Such things have no 
attraction for me, Mr. Sangster — none whatever 

“ Allow me to continue — a baronetcy, a seat later on in 
the Cabinet, and then a peerage. These things do not 
weigh with you. I am glad to hear you say so. They cer- 
tainly do not weigh with me. But what do these things 
mean for Dissent? They mean, Mr. Champness, that Dis- 
sent is taking its proper place in English life. They mean 
that the ascendancy of the Established Church is chal- 
lenged. They mean that when we come to disestablish that 
Church — as very certainly we shall do — there will be men 
in the House of Lords to see that the Will of the People 
prevails. That is what they mean. Nothing to you, per- 
haps ; but is it nothing to Nonconformity that our meetings 
should be presided over by Sir Humphry Champness, 
Baronet, and Member of Parliament ? Why, it means 
everything. It means, at any rate, the difference between 
advance and stagnation. It means that Dissent is an in- 
separable part — and a dignified and acknowledged part — 
of English life. It means a blow at the Vatican — a deadly 
blow.” 

“ That is one aspect, certainly,” said Mr. Champness, 
very gravely. Then, rising from his chair, telling his visitor 
not to move, he walked slowly down the room, stopping to 
turn up the gas-jet lighted by the servant, then continuing 
his progress round the table till he arrived back at the 
hearth. 

“ I must think it over,” he announced. 

'‘Will you give me your answer to-morrow?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ What time shall I call ? At your office in the morn- 
ing? It is a matter that does not admit of delay.” 

“ Eleven o’clock. Yes, at my office.” 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


37 


“ Thank you. ,, 

While he was rolling up his papers, the look came into 
Maurice’s face which always announced the return of the 
enthusiast. 

“ You have promised, Mr. Champness,” he said, in a 
very low and gentle tone of voice, “ that you will think this 
matter over. I need not ask you, I know, to make it also 
a matter of prayer.” 

Mr. Champness inclined his head. “ I shall certainly 
pray over it,” he said. 

“ Forgive me,” cried Maurice, taking a step forward ; 
“ but to me this seems a matter of such enormous, such 
overwhelming importance to the Church, that I cannot help 
asking you — feeling sure that God will move your heart to 
make the sacrifice entailed by a Parliamentary career — to 
allow me — oh, please forgive me — to pray with you about 
it now. Shall we? Here and now? Shall we ask God 
together to guide you aright ? ” 

It was long since such a proposal had been made to the 
financier. It took him back to older and simpler times. It 
took him back to his father’s house; it took him back 
to his own youth ; it took him back to the first years of his 
own home in Derby when his wife was alive, and his chil- 
dren were children. 

“ Certainly,” he replied, “ certainly.” 

“ Will you pray, or shall I ? ” asked Maurice. 

“ You,” said Champness. 

They knelt together, Mr. Champness at the little chair, 
and Maurice at the table. 

When they rose from their knees, Mr. Champness put 
his hand on the young man’s shoulder, and without looking 
at him said : “ I thank you — I thank you.” 

Then he led the way down the room. 

At the front door he said: “You must come and see us 
some evening.” 


38 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


VII 

The day had come when Leonard Champness was to re- 
turn from Oxford, bringing three of his friends with him. 
Maurice was restless and shaky. 

His relations with Mr. Champness had improved; but 
only one invitation to visit the house had been given to him 
since that morning when the financier delivered negative 
judgment touching the Parliamentary proposal, softening 
the blow with a check for a hundred guineas, which he 
hoped might be useful to the funds of Maurice’s organiza- 
tion. With the best disposition to do so, Maurice could 
not really assure himself that Mr. Champness was friendly. 
He could not convince himself that he had been a success 
at the dinner-table on the occasion of his visit. Jiggens had 
been there, and the mood of Mr. Champness being a cheer- 
ful one, Jiggens had been called “ Chris ” with considerable 
success. He had told amusing stories, he had given inimi- 
table accounts of diverting adventures; he had been ex- 
tremely interesting, well-informed, distinguished. The 
wonderful urbanity and dazzling wit of Jiggens had made 
Maurice awkward and dull. He realized then what was 
meant by a scintillating manner. No; he had not been a 
success. He told himself that he was too much in earnest 
for table-talk and the chatter of polite society. 

And now Leonard was returning, with Oxford men. 

Maurice worked exceedingly hard at his office all the 
morning, gave only ten minutes to his luncheon, and having 
gleaned from Phoebe the information that Leonard would 
arrive at four o’clock, set off for Clapham at a quarter-past 
three. He felt he could not rest until he had seen those 
Oxford men. 

He walked up and down on the opposite side of the road 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


39 


for nearly half an hour. At the end of that time a small 
railway omnibus, piled with baggage on the top, made its 
appearance in the distance. Maurice felt his blood turn 
cold. The luggage had a rollicking appearance. He felt 
that the three Oxford men inside were all Jiggenses, only 
younger, gayer, handsomer, richer, and more dandily at- 
tired. 

He hurried forward to meet the bus, and shot across 
the road just before he was level with it. He glanced up 
as it passed, and caught a sight of straw hats, which un- 
nerved him. He walked on for a few paces in the same 
direction, then wheeled round as if he had forgotten some- 
thing, and followed the bus. A girl’s school coming towards 
him processionally obscured his vision. He saw the bus- 
door open, saw four young men blunder out of it, saw them 
indistinctly congregate together on the pavement, and then 
saw them move away in a knot to the drive-gate. He in- 
creased his speed, and passed the house just when the 
coachman, with shelving shoulders and dragging arms, was 
crossing his path with some of the luggage in his hands. 
This gave him a moment’s excuse to stop and look up the 
drive. The front-door was open. The straw hats were 
bobbing off, and Phoebe, delightfully arrayed in white, was 
standing in the midst of the Oxford men, smiling. 

It was not that he thought her false or coquettishly 
minded; it was because he dreaded the influence of those 
terrible Oxford men that he hastened away w r ith beating 
heart, pale face, and a bitter taste in his soul. After a 
week in their society, what would she think of him? Would 
they so corrupt and spoil her exquisite nature that she 
would come to detect in him provincialisms which till now 
had eluded her observation? Would their frivolous con- 
versation breed in her dawning intelligence a contempt for 
enthusiasm, antipathy to ideals? He did not fear that she 


40 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


would fall in love with these men — that was a thought he 
dared not contemplate — but he did fear the contagion of 
swaggering and lounging young men full of their own 
conceits, and listless with the boredom of University tradi- 
tion. 

These men, too, might influence Mr. Champness, might 
make him less disposed than ever to entertain a newsagent’s 
son from Derby. There was no telling where the Oxford 
corruption might stop. Suppose they made a Churchman 
and Tory of Mr. Champness, carried him off to Belgravia, 
introduced him to dukes and duchesses, set his feet on the 
broad way of social aggrandizement which leads to spiritual 
destruction ! 

Unhappy Maurice! As he paced hot-foot back to Lon- 
don, he hated aristocracy with an immense and burning 
hatred. He imagined himself to be standing on a platform 
before a vast audience of working men; he made a speech 
to them about the sins of Society, as he walked quicker and 
quicker on his way; he was so caught up by the corrosive 
character of his invective, so carried away by the heat and 
passion of his imaginary eloquence, that he forgot Champ- 
ness, forgot Phoebe, forgot the Oxford men in straw hats, 
and began to speak out loud, swinging his arms, his face 
working with the fervor of this indignant, scornful, and 
superb oratory. 

Before he quite realized the fact, he found himself at 
the iron gate of Gowler’s house. He opened it, walked 
up the steps, and came face to face with Maud, lounging 
in the doorway. 

“ Hullo ! ” she drawled, without shifting her position. 
“ Don’t look as if you’d seen a ghost. I shan’t bite you.” 

He was struck by her woebegone appearance. 

“ What’s the matter?” he inquired. 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” she answered drearily, bitterly, im- 
patiently. 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


4i 


“ Something is troubling you ? ” 

“ I know that. Thank you all the same for telling 
me.” 

“What is it? Can I do anything ?” 

“No, thanks. I think I’d better go and drown myself; 
that would be the quickest way out. Shouldn’t I make a 
pretty corpse? Fancy me coming out of the river with a 
fish-hook in my waist-belt, and all my hair hanging, same 
as a mermaid’s ! Wouldn’t you laugh? ” 

“ Miss Gowler,” he said, “ don’t speak of such a horrible 
thing. It’s wrong; it’s wicked. God loves you. You know 
that.” 

“Does He? Well, if He does, nobody else don’t. I’m not 
wanted, anyway. A fool with sore eyes could see that. 
Other girls make friends. I don’t. I’m one of the un- 
wanted, I am. A little bit of overweight, that’s what I am. 
What’s the good of living if people don’t care about you? ” 

He was so moved with pity that he forgot all his own 
sorrows, and, laying a hand very tenderly on her arm, he 
poured out upon her the whole forces of his eloquent com- 
passion. He begged her to know that other hearts were 
either broken or transfixed with the spear of grief ; that 
these suffering hearts endured because they had faith in 
God, because they made adversity a ladder to heaven in- 
stead of a rock crushing them to earth. He implored Miss 
Gowler to surrender herself to the discipline of sorrow, and 
look through those whirling mists of scorching fire which 
now lacerated her bosom into the golden glories of an ever- 
lasting Kingdom shining with light and ringing with 
hosannahs. 

When he came to an end, she said, looking at him with 
a sad admiration: “You can speak, can’t you? I think 
if I was to hear you going on like that every day I might 
shake it off, and go to church regular, and read the Bible, 
and say my prayers. But you’re too busy to bother about 


42 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


me. Never mind. I shall do. My heart isn’t broken — at 
least, not that I know of — it’s only had a knock. That’s 
what some girls’ hearts are made for — just to get a knock. 
Funny thing, life is.” 

He offered further comfort. 

“ Oh, it’s all right,” she said. Then, drawing herself 
away: “ Here, you be careful! ” she said. “If anyone was 
to see you now, they’d think you was trying to kiss me. 
Oh, lor! wouldn’t that be a scandal! I’m going downstairs 
now. No, I think Ell do a bit of a mooch. Penny ride 
on a tramcar down to Victoria Park — that’s what I want. 
It’s no good sitting about in a chair, moping about the past, 
dreaming of days gone by, and bringing things up in con- 
versation. Well, au revoir. Don’t be frightened. I shan’t 
do Miss Beckwith in the Thames this time.” 

Maurice ascended to his room, waited to give Maud 
Gowler time to get out of his way, and then descended 
once more to the street and made for his office as fast as 
he could go. 

When he arrived there, the office-boy informed him that 
Dr. Mundy had called, and would return in a few minutes. 
Dr. Mundy was the chairman of his Fund — one of the 
most popular ministers of the Connexion, a tremendous 
politician, and a central figure in Free Church circles. 
Maurice admired him, and liked him. He looked up to 
him with a very great respect. No minister in London 
had made so deep an impression upon him, and it was 
largely by this man’s influence that he held his present 
position. 

He went into the little room assigned to him by the 
Connexion for organizing the political forces of Noncon- 
formity, and sat down at a table that was covered with 
letters and papers and manuscripts. He began to go 
through these papers rather nervously, blaming himself 
for having gone out of his way to the Gowlers’. Suppose 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


43 


Dr. Mundy dismissed him, suppose Phoebe became engaged 
to one of those Oxford men — would the consolation he had 
just offered so easily to Maud Gowler preserve his faith 
and enable him to face the world? Would it? He shud- 
dered, and offered a silent prayer to Heaven. 

His heart beat nervously at the sound of Dr. Mundy’s 
voice outside. He rose from his chair, a paper twitching 
in his fingers, and said jerkily as the door opened: “ I am 
extremely sorry, sir, that I was out when you first 
came.” 

“ My dear fellow, don’t let that trouble you for a 
minute ! ” exclaimed the benignant doctor. He shook 
Maurice’s hand very heartily, glanced at him shrewdly 
through his spectacles, drew a chair to the table, and sat 
down with the briskness, eagerness, and alacrity that was 
so characteristic of his high-spirited and happy life. 

“ Sangster,” he said, leaning well forward, and folding 
his hands on the table, “ I want you to start to-night for 
Bursby. There’s a chance there for us — something very 
big, something new. Let me tell you.” 

His eyebrows, which were bushy and of a lighter brown 
than his plentiful hair, came down in sudden concentration 
over his eyes, the forehead contorted itself into deep 
wrinkles, his bearded chin projected, and the small eyes 
glittered like black spots behind their spectacles. 

“ There’s going to be trouble in Bursby. A strike of 
the workmen — a big strike. Their wages are small; the 
conditions of their employment are scandalous ; their houses 
are abominable. At present the town is Church and Tory. 
But we’ve got a man there who is a prince of men, one of 
the finest fellows living, a great, strong, perfectly glorious 
fellow in the Reverend Reuben Scarffe. Do you know him ? 
Well, you soon will, and you’ll like him. He tells me that 
no town in England offers us a better chance to prove, what 
we must prove if we are not to perish, that” — here he 


44 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


rapped Maurice’s table with one of his hands — “ that the 
politics of the Free Churches are the politics of democracy, 
the politics of the people, not the politics of the comfortable 
middle classes. I’ve often told you that our strategy is not 
to get the Liberal Party to patronize us, but to make the 
Liberal Party do what we tell it. I’ve also told you that 
our future will lie more and more with the working classes. 
We must inspire the working men, Sangster, with our 
ideals, and then organize them as the grand army of prog- 
ress and enlightenment. Well, we talk about these things, 
and we don’t do them. We are regarded by everybody as 
the politicians of the small tradesman and the small business 
man. It won’t do! And now, here’s a great chance to 
prove what we really are. My suggestion is : Go as quick 
as train will take you to Bursby. Mr. Scarffe will put you 
up. Study the position thoroughly ; make yourself perfectly 
acquainted with the economic conditions of the town; dis- 
cuss the political aspects of the case with the workmen 
themselves; enter into a friendly and informal consultation 
with the Liberal agent; and then let me know whether a 
Nonconformist, running as a Nonconformist and a Demo- 
crat, would stand a chance of winning the seat. If so, 
I can put my hand on the man — a workman of unusual 
intelligence and the most scrupulous honor. The thing 
for you to do, Sangster, is to prepare the way, to be the 
forerunner and herald of this revolution. It is a great 
chance for you. Now go, like a good fellow, and do your 
best.” 

Relieved to find that he still stood in the good graces 
of Dr. Mundy, but rather depressed by leaving Phoebe 
alone at a time when she so sorely needed his sympathy to 
counteract the influence of Oxford, Maurice finished his 
work at the office, consulted a time-table, dispatched a tele- 
gram to Bursby, and hurried back to Lambeth to pack his 
bag. 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


45 


VIII 

If Maurice had seen the Oxford men before his depar- 
ture he might have set out upon that eventful journey to 
the North with a heart infinitely freer from the discom- 
fortable pangs of jealousy. 

Leonard Champness and his three friends were serious 
students, and the marks of serious study were so visibly 
written upon their brows that no one in his right senses 
could possibly have supposed them capable of corrupting 
youth and innocence, might even have doubted their capac- 
ity to inspire a tender affection in the least exigent of 
spinsters. In spite of the deceptive straw hats of which 
Maurice had caught only a distracted glance, and in spite 
of the rollicking look of the luggage on top of the omnibus, 
these four students of Oxford presented some such distinct 
and mirth-moving an appearance as occasionally may be 
seen of a winter evening in a village schoolroom, when four 
very rustic and lugubrious gentlemen, calling themselves a 
“ quartet party,” shuffle awkwardly and unwillingly — 
keeping very close together for company — into the terrify- 
ing glare of publicity. 

The scholarly son of the financier, for instance, had the 
look of a young man who is too big for his coats and too 
tall for his trousers. The expression of his eyes was one 
of fixed and unending inquiry; he looked as if he were 
staring through his spectacles into a boundless perspective 
of insoluble perplexity. This expression of the eyes, which 
was assisted by the pout of his lips, by the tuft of stubborn 
hair which stuck out of the back of his head, by the con- 
centration of the eyebrows towards the point where his 
spectacles crossed the bridge of his nose, gave him a de- 
cidedly mournful and depressing appearance. The fact, 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


46 

too, that his nose had apparently experienced no little 
difficulty in growing up, and still retained something of the 
brevity and tilt which are so pleasant and characteristic of 
infancy, tended to confirm in thoughtless and unob- 
servant people the impression that he was dull in his 
wits. 

His friends were less demented in appearance, but they 
were all equally untidy and equally serious. When they 
unbent, as even the most serious unbend at certain times, 
they could quote the verses of Matthew Prior and Calverley, 
the wit of Lewis Carroll, the bitter epigrams of the Greek 
anthology, or some preposterous exaggeration of Mark 
Twain — over which they would laugh consumedly. On the 
occasions when Nature moved them to sportiveness, they 
would go into the garden, station themselves at different 
points of the lawn, and toss a soft ball to each other, begin- 
ning slowly, increasing the speed as they gradually lessened 
the distance between them, and laughing very heartily 
when at last someone failed to effect a catch, and the ball 
bounced into a flower-bed. 

Their alternations between lounging idleness and immense 
activity rather puzzled the financier. Mr. Champness him- 
self went like a clock ; he walked up and down stairs always 
at the same pace, he sat down to his meals exactly as he 
sat down to his office table, he never lounged, and he never 
hurried. His habits were as fixed as the calendar, his 
dignity as everlasting as the hills. But these young men 
at one moment would be sprawling about on sofas and 
chairs, yawning their heads off, and at the next would be 
walking into London at fiery speed to interview the British 
Museum or reconstruct the history of Westminster Abbey. 
They would seem on some occasions as if an earthquake 
could not move them from their pottering and dawdling 
indolence ; and yet, in a minute, they would spring to their 
feet, rush up the stairs like seamen going aloft, and descend 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


47 

before you could say Jack Robinson in the manner of 
Niagara, ready to start for a walk into the country or an 
expedition to the Tower of London. 

It was only this extraordinary transition from the very 
extremity of laggard pandiculation to a quite bewildering 
exhibition of furious activity which troubled the great 
financier in his character as host. He liked to have the 
young men in his house. For one thing, they treated him 
with considerable respect, and entirely did away with his 
original misgiving that perhaps they would discover his 
ignorance of intellectual matters, and so ignore him at 
his own table. But quite apart from this, old Mr. Champ- 
ness — and he was not very old either — liked the feeling 
of company, scholarship, and sober good spirits which the 
young men brought into his quiet house. He found it in- 
teresting to sit in his chair after dinner listening to the 
disputation of the young men, occasionally putting in a 
brief sentitious word of his own, but only when he was 
perfectly sure of his facts. He liked to hear their accounts 
of the places they had visited in the day. He liked to 
know that while he had been busy in the City they had not 
been idle. He liked to feel as he came homeward that the 
house would not be silent when he opened the door, and 
that there would be no necessity to send across the road 
for Mr. Christopher Jiggens. 

It speaks eloquently for the state of his disposition 
towards these four young men that he was only slightly 
troubled when he made the discovery that one of Leonard’s 
friends was the son of an Anglican clergyman, and that 
none of them was a Nonconformist. As eloquently, too, 
perhaps more eloquently, it speaks to this benevolence in his 
nature that he was only momentarily startled when he 
found that Leonard and his friends were in the habit of 
going to theaters. As for their horrible pipes and clouds 
of tobacco-smoke filling his dining-room after breakfast and 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


48 

dinner, while Mr. Champness disapproved, he said nothing 
at all in objection. London had broadened his mind. While 
he retained all his original scruples, while he clung tena- 
ciously to the traditions he had inherited and the judgments 
he had formed for himself in his early manhood at Derby, 
he was less disposed to censure other men for holding 
contrary opinions. 

So it came about that Leonard’s friends, all of whom 
had their homes in the provinces, were pressed to prolong 
their visit, and for many weeks they remained as the guests 
of Mr. Champness in Clapham, using his house as the base 
of their operations in an historical exploration of London 
which was at once catholic and discriminating. 

If Mr. Champness liked the young men we may be sure 
that Phoebe liked them, too. And as they took her with 
them on some of their expeditions, particularly to such 
places as Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition, the Royal Aqua- 
rium, the Crystal Palace, the Polytechnic in Regent Street, 
and the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, 
her life might be described at this time, if we bring it into 
comparison with the monotony of her former existence, as 
a veritable whirl. 

And yet Phoebe was not happy ; indeed, she was far from 
happy. The sympathetic reader will not need to be told 
the cause of this unhappiness. It arose, of course, from the 
sudden and mysterious disappearance of Maurice Sangster. 
He had vanished from her life, and had not uttered or 
written one word of explanation. When she was shopping, 
when she was paying the books, when she was going to 
chapel or meeting, she looked to right and left of her, 
hoping for a sight of her hero ; but all in vain. The Royal 
Aquarium might soothe her misgiving, the Polytechnic in 
Regent Street might mitigate her anxiety, but nothing 
could permanently shake the conviction from her heart 
that either Maurice had abandoned her or something very 


LOVE AND ZEAL 49 

dreadful had happened to the impulsive and earnest young 
man. 

One night she was sitting rather dejectedly at dinner 
when the animation of the voices at the table gradually 
broke in upon her abstraction with the intimation that 
something out of the usual was under discussion. She had 
just roused herself, and was just beginning to understand 
that something to do with the working classes was the sub- 
ject of this lively debate, when the friend of Leonard, who 
was sitting next to her, turned and put the puzzling ques- 
tion : 

“Have you read it yet, Miss Champness?” 

She smiled and shook her head. 

“ You really must,” said the young man. “ The papers 
to-night are full of it. There’s a regular scream over it in 
the Pall Mall Gazette leading article.” 

“What is it?” she asked, leaning forward and affect- 
ing interest. 

“Oh, you haven’t heard? Well, in the London Herald 
this morning there’s a three-column article describing the 
life of a manufacturing town in the North of England. It’s 
the first of a series. The state of things it exposes is some- 
thing too frightful for words. Of course, it’s only journal- 
ism, and the tone of the thing is rather vulgar and hysterical, 
but if even only half of what it says is true the condition 
is perfectly appalling. Your father is inclined to think the 
article is much too exaggerated, and takes the view that it 
is dangerous to write in such an inflammatory style of 
grievances which may be modified, but which can never 
be permanently removed.” 

With this the young man turned to hear what the others 
were saying, and poor Phoebe sank once more into her 
state of abstraction. 

The discussion was something of a duel between Mr. 
Champness, who spoke with great weight as a capitalist, 


50 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


and one of the Oxford men, the clergyman's son, who 
spoke with no little spirit as a Socialist. Every now and 
then Leonard would put in a wise word which told on his 
father’s side. 

So interesting was this discussion that Mr. Champness 
did not retire to the drawing-room when dinner was 
finished and the Oxford men produced their pipes from 
their pockets. He and Phoebe remained in an atmosphere 
of tobacco-smoke, she listening with a gradually increasing 
interest — for the young Socialist reminded her in his views 
of the vanished Maurice — he speaking with greater effect in 
the consciousness that his argument was prevailing very 
powerfully. 

The door opened, and a servant entered the room. She 
went to the side of Mr. Champness, stood there till he had 
finished what he was saying, and then, stooping a little, 
announced that Mr. Maurice Sangster would be glad if he 
might see Mr. Champness for a few minutes on very urgent 
and important business. 

Mr. Champness considered for a moment, and then said, 
with quite a welcome in the tone of his voice : “ Ask him if 
he will come in.” 

Maurice entered the room as if he was off to catch a 
train. He shook hands with everybody as if he was saying 
good-by. He sat down at the table as if he was about to 
write a telegram. 

But he squeezed Phoebe’s hand so very reassuringly, he 
looked so heroic and triumphant and happy, that she could 
‘have sung for joy, almost have cried for the sudden transi- 
tion of her feelings. 

“ We were discussing a matter, Mr. Sangster, that will 
interest you, I think,” said old Champness, looking at the 
young man and remembering how they had once prayed 
together in that very room. 

“ Indeed?” 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


5i 


“ The article which appeared this morning in the London 
Herald.” 

“ Ah, I shall be glad to hear your opinion about that,” 
said Maurice, drawing his chair closer to the table. “ I am 
interested, particularly interested. I know the town, and 
I know the man who is writing the series of articles.” 

“ Really?” 

“ In fact ” — looking round the table — “ if I may tell a 
secret, I am myself the writer of the article.” 

Phoebe’s heart leaped with joy. Oh, why, why had she 
not listened more earnestly to what was being said? She 
looked at Maurice with pride in her eyes. For a moment 
he flashed at her a look which said, “ All is well ; don’t 
worry ; I have conquered ” ; then he turned quickly to Mr. 
Champness, who was saying : 

“ I think you would be well advised to moderate the tone 
of the succeeding articles.” 


IX 

When Maurice Sangster arrived in Bursby and had 
greeted the Rev. Reuben Scarffe, he suggested to that ex- 
cellent man, being in a fervid state of mind, and determined 
to distinguish himself in the political mission and so win 
the hand of Phoebe Champness, that they should open pro- 
ceedings and sanctify their discussion with prayer. So 
far as I am able to discover, this was the last time in his 
wonderful career that such a proposition was made by Mr. 
Sangster. One may say that it was from the very moment 
when Mr. Scarffe told him to sit down and listen to good 
sound horse sense, instead of pretending to address the 
Almighty in order that he might preach at him, Reuben 
Scarffe, that Maurice Sangster entered upon the second 
phase of his eventful career. 


52 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


With Reuben Scarffe Maurice lived the first week of his 
stay in Bursby rather uncomfortably. At the end of the 
first week he began to like him, and by the end of the 
second week he really loved him. I do not think I exag- 
gerate when I say that before the third week had passed 
if there was one man living for whom Maurice would 
have gone cheerfully to the rack, given his thumbs to 
the screw, laid his head upon the block, or offered his 
breast to the bullets of an outraged authority in scarlet 
tunic and brass buttons, that man was Reuben Scarffe. 

In appearance Mr. Scarffe was only attractive at a 
second glance. He was short in the leg, heavy in the body, 
and his head looked as if it had caught in infancy a very 
sharp and complicated attack of water on the brain. Bald 
on the top of his high and swollen forehead, clean-shaven 
from ear to ear, and afflicted with a pale and yellowish 
complexion which lacked the finish of a black and radiant 
pigtail to give it atmosphere, his face presented at a first 
and hasty inspection only the uncomfortable appearance of 
a half-baked loaf. But on looking more closely into this 
soft and pulp-like mass of face, one discovered that the 
little slits of green eyes were overflowing with shrewdness, 
that the long, unwieldy, and apparently boneless nose was 
indicative of considerable humor, and that the great flexible 
mouth, bulging up the cheeks and shutting the eyes, when 
it expanded to its full smile, expressed the most engaging 
and contagious good-nature. In short, one could not look 
at Reuben Scarffe a second time without discovering that 
he was something of a character, and without the feeling 
that it would be a comparatively easy business to contract 
for this whimsical, awkward, and untidy little creature a 
real and generous liking. 

How he came to influence Maurice Sangster may be 
told in a few words. He began by tearing up all the tradi- 
tional and inherited notions which clothed the young man’s 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


53 

life, asking him at the conclusion of this disrobing what he 
really was — what his unclothed and stark-naked soul 
definitely knew about the mysteries of the universe ; he 
then proceeded to inform the cold and shivering soul of 
the young gentleman that Dissent was not a religion, and 
that other churches beside his own were sincerely attempt- 
ing to serve God. From this he went to the great test of 
their Maker, and asked Maurice how many hungry people 
he had fed, to how many thirsty people had he given 
drink, how many naked people he had clothed, how many 
sick people and people in prisons he had visited — not, of 
course, during the whole course of his life, but in the last 
week or two — if he liked it better, yesterday and the day 
before. 

When Maurice made no answer, Reuben Scarffe had 
laughed, clapped him on the shoulder, and had said to him : 
“ Lad, you pray too much and work too little. You’ve 
inherited a bad idea. Get rid of it. See this, now; you 
have spent most of your life between praying to God, ask- 
ing Him to do what you want Him to do, that, and calling 
other people — your fellow-Christians, mark you — hard 
names. Your work, lad, has not been a hunger and thirst 
to bring heaven on the earth, but a bad-tempered effort to 
kick off the earth a church or two that you don’t take to, 
that you don’t like. You don’t want to make the country 
a Christian country, and that is not what you’re out for — 
you want to get the Tories down and the Liberals on top. 
Call yourself a Christian? No, lad! You’re nothing but a 
political dissenter, and shallow at that. You don’t know 
what poverty, real poverty, is ; you don’t know what factory 
servitude can do with the bodies and the souls of men, 
women, and children; you don’t know what life in a slum 
means, what the public-house means, what temptation 
means. I’m going to show you these things. Instead of the 
words and the names, I’m going to show you the things 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


54 

themselves. You’ve been looking for life in a dictionary, 
for God in a chapel; I’m going to show you both life and 
God in the streets of Bursby. And when you’ve seen what 
I’ve got to show you, you’ll forget, lad, all about the Pope 
and the Ritualists, all about old Dizzy and old Gladstone, 
perhaps you’ll forget about the chapel, the prayer-meeting, 
and the Doctrines of entire sanctification; you’ll have just 
one want in your heart, and that will be to get Christ into 
political economy, Christ into the House of Commons, and 
Christ into the daily life of unhappy people. When you 
have got that wish, lad, really got it, you won’t have to go 
farther than your own heart to find what everybody needs 
before he can be a Christian.” 

Maurice had resented this vigorous instruction; he re- 
sented it at first coldly, and, as Scarfife got more and more 
the better of him in argument, hotly, indignantly. Per- 
haps he might have rallied his intellectuality, made a great 
fight for the ancient traditions which held him in bondage, 
and stuck to his prejudices to his life’s end, if the controversy 
had ended in the study of Mr. Scarffe. But day after day 
the energetic minister had carried Maurice into the streets 
of the town, taken him into the homes of poor people, made 
him sit in the Radical Club with intelligent Trades Union- 
ists and Socialists, brought him face to face with Labor 
in its lair and ultimate dog-hole, shown him poverty on 
its last leg, sickness in its darkest and dampest corner, 
human life in its fullest extremity of want, misery, and 
despair. 

For the first time Maurice looked Labor in the face. 
Hitherto he had been disposed to regard the multitudinary 
masses of England as ignorant, improvident, drunken, and 
disreputable. For the working man who came to chapel 
and prayer-meetings, he had the friendly patronage of a 
small tradesman; for the working man who had a vote, 
and could be trusted to give the vote to the enemies of 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


55 

Church and landlord, he had a feeling of distant admiration. 
But now he came face to face with Labor itself— the un- 
natural Labor of civilization, Labor divided from pure air, 
green fields, and the company of birds and beasts; Labor 
herded into settlements of squalor and poverty; Labor 
worse housed, worse fed, worse clothed, and worse tended 
than lunatics in the county asylum, prisoners in the county 
jail, and rogues and vagabonds in the Union workhouse; 
Labor that hated its toil and was at enmity with the social 
order. 

“ Bursby is a town,” said Scarffe, “ that knocks humbug 
out of a man quicker than any other town I know. We’re 
all poor; we all live in the same kind of dirty red box with 
a slate top over our heads; we all have to work for our 
living; we all breathe the same air of factory-smoke and 
railway coal-dust; and we haven’t got a public park or an 
open space from one end of the place to the other. We 
know what hunger means, what it means to be cold in 
winter, we know what sickness and unemployment mean, we 
know what an extra baby costs to feed, and what the un- 
dertaker charges to bury one of our worn-out bodies ; but we 
don’t know what philosophy and theology are worrying 
their heads about, nor what good ever comes of battles 
between Tory and Whig, nor what advantage comes from 
science, nor what pleasure comes from art, nor what glory 
comes from empire ; those things, lad, don’t travel to 
Bursby!” 

And Maurice — they had just visited a house filled with a 
white-faced, stunted family, a family described by Scarffe 
as having “ rickety ribs, knock-knees, tuberculous lungs, 
chalky teeth, and weak eyes, all the lot, all the whole con- 
sumptive lot of them ” — had replied : “ But it will take a 

revolution to alter these things.” To which Scarffe made 
answer : “ But isn’t a revolution the very thing we want, 

the very thing we ought to fight for? Why, lad, that’s the 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


56 

only thing we long and pray for in Bursby — a revolution. 
Come, you aren’t a tinkerer, are you ? ” 

One night as they sat together Maurice said to Scarffe, 
that if he had known what he knew now, when he was a 
journalist in Derby, he might have written something that 
would have startled mankind. 

“ Lad, you’re not very old yet,” replied Scarffe. “ Begin 
now. Write what you’ve seen, tell what you’ve heard, and 
warn London that a strike is coming this autumn which 
will spread till it bursts something. That’s just what we 
want, articles in the papers. People don’t know. Why, 
Sangster, lad, do you suppose if people knew what you know 
now they’d still do nothing? No; men and women, when 
all’s said and done, are not laughing devils.” 

Maurice felt very much inclined to write. To tell the 
truth, he had gone to sleep on the last two nights compos- 
ing a tremendous indictment of society which brought him 
with surprising swiftness into close and intimate acquaint- 
ance with Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Joseph 
Chamberlain, and the editors of the chief London news- 
papers. 

“ I will ! ” he exclaimed. “ At least, I’ll try. Scarffe, I 
believe I can do something rather good. But you must 
help. And when it’s finished I’ll send it to Dr. Mundy. 
He’ll get it in the quarterly magazine. We’ll fire the 
Church.” 

Scarffe replied: “Write your article. I’ll see about 
getting it printed.” 

And when it was written, and when Scarffe had curtailed 
it here, expanded it there, and dropped in two or three 
stories calculated to freeze the blood of comfortable human- 
ity, this great article, described as the first of the series, 
was dispatched to the editor of the daily London Herald. 

“ I have often told you,” wrote Scarffe to his friend the 
editor, “ that you ought to send down one of your best 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


57 

special correspondents to Bursby. You haven’t done so. 
And now I show you what an amateur can do. Publish 
these articles, but don’t publish the writer’s name. He’s 
young, it might turn his head, and properly handled he’ll 
do something useful.” 

In sending a proof of the article the editor had told 
Scarffe that not one of his special correspondents could 
have written such an amazingly good account of an indus- 
trial town. He asked him to tell Maurice Sangster that 
he would be glad to see him when he returned to London. 
In a postscript he said: “ I am trusting to you to justify 
the facts mentioned in the article, which seem to me perhaps 
a trifle exaggerated.” 

That was how the first article came to be written. 
Maurice wrote five more articles before he left Bursby, and 
he arrived in London on the day that saw the publication 
of the first. 

Before we proceed to tell how he fared at the dinner- 
table of Mr. Champness, we must relate that on arriving 
in London he went at once to his office, reported fully to 
Dr. Mundy, and then hastened back to his Lambeth lodg- 
ings in order to change his clothes before paying a visit 
to the financier. 

It was like the jade that everybody who knows anything 
of the ups and downs of life assures us she undoubtedly is, 
that Fortune, just as Mr. Maurice Sangster was beginning 
to feel the primroses beneath his feet on this day of a 
veritable triumph — for the evening newspapers were all 
talking of his article — should have turned on the tap of 
mortification, chagrin, and positive humiliation in the per- 
son of Mr. Gowler. 

“ Ha ! ” exclaimed Gowler, meeting Sangster in the pas- 
sage, and standing between lodger and staircase in a manner 
that was unmistakably aggressive. “ It’s about time, I think, 
that you did return. IVe been wanting a word with you, 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


58 

Sangster, ever since I came home one night and found 
you had flitted into an alibi.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” demanded Maurice, who was 
rather more manly than when he departed. 

“ Mean ! ” exclaimed Gowler, shaking the ashes from his 
pipe with a jerk of his right hand; “ why, I mean a word 
about you and my daughter, Miss Maud Gowler. That’s 
what I mean, Sangster.” 

“ I don’t understand you.” 

“But I mean to understand you before I’ve done with 
you,” answered Gowler, fumbling in his waistcoat pocket 
for a box of matches, while he continued to shake the ashes 
from his pipe with the other hand. “ Making my daughter’s 
name a byword ! ” he exclaimed wrathfully ; “ using my own 
front doorstep for your carryings on; setting all the neigh- 
bors talking in a manner that might very well get me and 
Mrs. Gowler and the children turned out of our house ; and 
then — doing a bunk, skedaddling, hiding away till you 
thought it had blown over! No, Sangster, no! It ain’t 
blown over; it ain’t going to blow over. I’m a man who 
can look after his children, and look after Miss Gowler, 
who is at a dangerous time of life, and a fetching girl, 
too, as everybody very well knows, I will — certainly I will. 
If you see green in my eye, tell me; I shall be glad to know 
about it.” 

At this point Maurice interrupted the old man. “ I have 
no time to waste,” he said. “ Kindly say what you have 
to say quickly. At present you are talking nonsense, so far 
as I am concerned. What is it you want to say? ” 

Taken aback by this wholly unexpected attack, Gowler 
lit his pipe, looked through the smoke at Maurice as he did 
so, and said at last, carrying the stump of the match with 
elaborate precaution to a battered old hatstand, and drop- 
ping it with exceeding caution into the tin tray : “ I’m not 
talking nonsense, Mr. Sangster; I’m appealing to your sense 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


59 


of decency as an English gentleman and a Christian young 
man. Now, I ask you: Did you, or did you not, on the 
evening of Toosday, the 5th ult., put your arm round Miss 
Gowler’s waist, draw her to you — mark that, draw her to 
you — and make as if you would kiss her behind the ear? 
Now, did you, or did you not?” 

“ Most certainly not,” ejaculated Maurice, very indignant 
and scornful. 

“ And, further,” demanded old Gowler, “ was the assault 
delivered on the front doorstep in full view of opposite 
windows at a time when the blinds were up and there was 
light enough to see across the street ? ” 

“ The whole thing is too absurd for discussion ! ” cried 
Maurice. 

“ And, further,” continued old Gowler, “ when Miss 
Gowler repulsed you, and ran away to escape from you, did 
you go upstairs for a minute, and then come down quick, 
bolt down the street, and do your best to track her ? ” 

“ I will hear no more. You are ludicrously absurd. Ask 
Miss Gowler.” 

“Now, excuse me, Mr. Sangster, excuse me — but that’s 
mean. I don’t think as ever I heard a meaner thing said 
than that. Ask Miss Gowler! What! Ask the girl who 
loves you, who would perjure herself to save you an hour’s 
anguish, who is breaking her heart for you now at this very 
minute? No! No! ” He put his pipe into his mouth, and 
said softly : “ My poor little Maud ! No ! I shan’t ask her.” 

“ Then my answer is this,” answered Maurice. “ I have 
never attempted to embrace Miss Gowler, and I never shall 
— neither on your front doorstep nor in your back parlor. 
I am not a villain. I am not a fool. If you scruple to ask 
Miss Gowler for her version of your libelous story you 
must accept mine. Here it is : the story is grotesque, absurd, 
scandalous, unworthy of a moment’s consideration.” 

“ Well, Sangster,” said old Gowler, very meekly, laying 


6o 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


a hand on the lodger’s arm, and attempting his most in- 
gratiating manner, “ I must say that I am very glad to hear 
you say so. I couldn’t believe it of you. I know you ad- 
mire Maud. I know that as a single gentleman living in 
lodgings it must be a fiery temptation to have the oppor- 
tunities as you have enjoyed of indulging yourself in her 
society. And, Sangster, life has taught me that all men 
are vulnerable where women are concerned — all men. I 
don’t believe the man has ever lived who could be in the 
society of a good-looking and respectable young lady like 
our Maud without wanting to taste the sweets of what you 
may call a connubial intimacy. But I couldn’t bear to think 
that you had indulged yourself in such a manner out of sheer 
wickedness and deceiving cruelty. I told her so. I told 
the neighbors so. I said Sangster is religious, I said 
Sangster isn’t one of your foxy butter-haired hypocrites, 
and I said Sangster has paid his rent regularly, and behaved 
himself always in my house like a gentleman, and I won’t 
believe it of him ; I said I wont believe it of him.” 

At this point Maurice said to the old man : “ I am late 
already for an important appointment. When I return I 
will speak to you again of this matter. But pray put out of 
your head any idea that I am a victim of Miss Gowler’s 
attractions. As a matter of fact, I am, practically speaking, 
already engaged.” 

“ Oh,” said old Gowler, blinking his eyes — “ oh, so that’s 
it, is it? ” He moved out of Maurice’s way. “ Well, then,” 
he grumbled, “ we needn’t say no more about the matter. 
Life’s full of mistakes. I hope the one as you have made 
won’t land you into indigestion and the bankruptcy court. 
Can she cook, this girl of yours ? ” And with that, pulling 
at the extinct ashes at the bottom of his pipe, the old fellow 
shuffled oft in his carpet slippers to the basement head. 

“ By the way,” he said, coming to a stop and turning his 
head to shout up the stairs, “ Maud’s back.” 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


61 


X 

“ Tell me, did your father say anything about me after 
I had left? ” 

Phoebe was walking on air in the neighborhood of Clap- 
ham Common, her eyes dazzled by more sunlight than came 
from the sky. “ He praised you/’ she said. “ They all 
praised you; they said your descriptions were wonderful.” 

Maurice smiled. “ But didn’t your father say anything 
about my politics ? Isn’t he afraid how far I shall go ? He 
gave me that impression.” 

“ He said that you might be dangerous,” Phoebe admitted 
a little unwillingly. “ And Leonard said that sentiment 
ought not to be mixed up with politics. But they all agreed 
that your article was splendid, and that what you told them 
about the poor people in Bursby was terrible — more impres- 
sive, they said, than the article itself. And at breakfast this 
morning one of Leonard’s friends — he’s a clergyman’s son 
and a Socialist — read the second article aloud, and they all 
praised it very much indeed.” 

“ But your father ; did he speak of me myself ? How does 
he strike you in his attitude towards me ? ” 

“ I think he said that you would be very dangerous unless 
someone controlled you,” Phoebe replied. She turned and 
smiled at him to soften the blow of this communication. 
How exalted, how heroic he looked ! 

“ Someone to control me ! ” exclaimed Maurice scornfully. 
“ But no one shall ever control me. I won’t be ruled. I 
won’t be bought. No man shall make me either the hack of 
the Liberal Party or the fawning lackey of Capital. No! I 
intend to be free. I intend to speak the truth. I intend to 
live for the people, and to work for the revolution that will 
tear Society up by the roots. No one shall control me, 
except God and the woman I love.” 


62 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


She had been a little frightened till he came to the end of 
his passionate speech, but at the end of it she flushed to the 
roots of her hair, a mist of heat surged to her eyes, and a 
bird of uncommonly gorgeous plumage, with a note un- 
matched in the groves of Arcady, started to sing at top-speed 
in her little fluttering heart. Oh, she could scarce walk for 
ecstasy ! 

She dared not look at him. But he, glancing at her, saw 
that the battle was won already, won definitely, decisively, 
unalterably. It was now only a question of taking peaceful 
possession of conquered territory. 

How charming she looked! how soft, tender, timorous! 
how exquisitely pliant and sweet ! What distinction in her 
dress! How lady-like, how gracious, how refined! Per- 
haps innocence and purity were the distinguishing charac- 
teristics of her beauty; but who could look at her and not 
feel the bewitchment of her patrician style and manner ? If 
old Gowler could see her, how he would stare ! One might 
almost say that Maurice was in love with the lady’s veil, the 
tulle round her neck, the light muff which she gently held at 
her waist, and the blush roses in her hat. 

“ Miss Phoebe,” he said to her, “ I called upon your father 
last night to ask him if he would subscribe to a special fund 
we are raising to run a working-man candidate for Bursby. 
He is thinking the matter over ; it is a new idea, and it takes 
time for old-fashioned Liberals to adjust their minds to such 
a revolutionary change. There is another question I shall 
have to ask him, if you will give me your permission to do 
so, and one that I fear may disturb him more than the polit- 
ical question. For it will touch his own life. It will touch 
his pride and his social position. It will touch his heart. It 
is concerning this second question, if you will allow me to 
do so, that I should like to sound you.” 

Phoebe dared not speak. She could scarcely hear what 
Maurice was saying for the noise made in her heart by the 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


63 

bird of gorgeous plumage now singing as if he were trying 
to overtake the Flying Dutchman. As for the pavements of 
the south side of Clapham Common, they were like a spring 
mattress, or like the great aerial net over which Zagel had 
run in the Royal Aquarium after being shot out of a cannon 
to the crash of the cymbals and the rattle of all the orchestra. 
Phoebe, of course, had never been tipsy in her life, but from 
this moment she could never truthfully deny that she had 
experienced some of the milder sensations of intoxication. 

Maurice ventured to put his hand to her arm just below 
the elbow. She trembled in every limb. The earth jumped 
and zigzagged like a magic-lantern slide that won’t go per- 
fectly into the socket. 

“ Shall we cross the road?” he asked, and led her gently 
to the other side in a silence that had all the lighter qualities 
of chloroform, laughing-gas, and the bottled energies of the 
Widow Clicquot. 

“How jolly the Common looks this morning!” he ex- 
claimed, the hand still at her arm. He felt that she was as 
clay in his hands. Not like a shepherd, but like a butcher, 
he led this precious lamb through an opening in the rails on 
to a path that slanted across the Common. 

“ I want to speak to you where we can be quiet,” he said. 
“ I want to tell you something and to ask you something. 
The houses must not look at us, and vehicles must not drown 
our words with the harsh clangor of their wheels. Only 
Nature must be a witness — the green grass, the leafy elms, 
the blue sky, and the ponds shining in the sun. Nature calls 
to us at such moments as a mother to her children, as a hen 
to her chickens — Nature, which is the expression of God’s 
love for His little ones. Phoebe, I can keep silence no 
longer ! ” 

Oh, how beautifully he spoke! And as he spoke how 
remarkably green became the grass of the Common, how ma- 
jestically the tall elms towered up to the blue sky, how 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


64 

sweetly, how sweetly the fresh pure air of the morning came 
to her brow, her nostrils, and her lips ! 

They passed the first big pond, where one or two serious 
and bearded men, with long poles ending in brass hooks, 
were watching very critically the running of their yachts be- 
fore the wind ; they skirted the side of Windmill Pond, where 
dirty, bare-legged, bare-headed, and noisy children were fish- 
ing for sticklebacks with nets and bottles tied with string 
about the necks. They followed a narrow path through 
gorse-bushes, which were rather black with smoke and fog, 
and they came at last very circuitously to Island Pond, where 
children of the upper classes, with nurses in stiff linen, were 
sailing little boats, where dogs were paddling at the water’s 
edge, barking as if the end of the world had come, and 
where one or two very professional-looking anglers sat upon 
campstools eating sandwiches and looking voraciously at 
their floats. 

By this time heaven had opened her golden gates and let 
them both in. Maurice had told her the business on which 
he desired to speak to her father; she had begged him to 
defer so perilous an undertaking until his position was more 
assured, and he, sorrowfully confessing his humble birth, his 
narrow up-bringing, and his meager salary, had suddenly 
heard himself addressed as “ Dear Maurice,” and suddenly 
felt her little hand slipped within his arm. 

When they arrived at Island Pond, where the air is at its 
freshest and the sun shines on a fine morning at its brightest, 
they were so ecstasied by their love that they stood there, 
arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, as close as ever true lovers 
ever stood in public, smiling upon the cheerful scene which 
greeted their eyes, blessing it with the happiness of their 
love. She did not think at all about people seeing them ; but 
he hoped, and hoped very happily, that everyone would take 
notice of him, standing there so finely and heroically with an 
exquisite lady on his arm who was the very pink of patrician 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


65 

grace. It pleased him to observe that one very distin- 
guished-looking woman, engaged in drying the legs of a little 
boy in brown holland and a sailor’s hat, was rather carelessly 
performing the task, so interested was she in the Romeo and 
Juliet attitude of Phoebe and himself. If only Gowler could 
see him, too ! Poor Maud ! perhaps if she should pass at 
this blissful moment she would realize the depth and the 
width of that gulf, social and intellectual, which separated a 
Gowler from a Sangster. How preposterous that people of 
her class should dream of equality with him! It only 
showed that ignorant people did not understand kindness 
and sympathy; they presumed upon kindness. One could 
not touch pitch without defilement; it was necessary to be 
proud ; there was reason for aloofness. 

He led Phoebe away, and said to her : “ You have told me 
that you believe in me, dear Phoebe. Let me tell you what I 
intend to do. My course is quite plain before my eyes, and 
I shall make no mistakes. I intend to augment my salary 
by journalism, but not to become a journalist. I shall ma- 
neuver for a post at Liberal headquarters, exchange the 
provincialism of a sectarian organization for the metropoli- 
tan power and dignity of our central caucus. Once there, I 
shall not rest till I am at the head of the organization — the 
chief agent of the Liberal Party and the master mind of its 
machinery! It means a thousand a year at the least; it 
means an honor, if I want one; it means mixing with the 
best families in the land.” 

“ Oh, but I should not like that,” she exclaimed. 

“ Do you think,” he asked very fiercely, “ that I intend to 
drag you down ? Do you think that I could bear to see you 
moving in a society lower than that in which you move now 
by the right of your father’s position and your own ladylike 
charm ? No, dear Phoebe, no ! I will not marry you till I 
have made my mark in the world.” 

In vain she protested that her position was a humble one ; 


66 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


he would not hear of such a thing. No, he knew perfectly 
well that he was the son of a newsagent and stationer, while 
she was the beautiful daughter of one of the greatest finan- 
ciers in the City of London. 

“ Your brother has been to Oxford,” he said. “ Think of 
that! Think what it implies! I went to a Board-school, 
my brothers went to a Board-school ; and one of my brothers 
is now a railway booking-clerk, another is employed as a 
milkman’s assistant, and the third and youngest goes round 
the town delivering newspapers ! ” 

Certainly when he put it in this way Phoebe did see that 
their social positions were very different. She was con- 
scious of feeling cold — not that her love dwindled, but that 
she feared what her father would say. 

“ I have no wish, dear Maurice, to be grand and rich,” she 
said gently. “ I only want to be happy with you, whatever 
your circumstances may be. If necessary,” she added very 
sweetly, “ I will do the work of our home.” 

“ What,” he cried, “ marry you without a servant ! I’d 
rather die first ! Think of your beautiful complexion 
scorched by the kitchen fire, your little hands red and swollen 
from the washtub! No; we shall keep a servant. You 
shall be a lady as Mrs. Sangster even as you are a lady now 
as Miss Champness.” 

He then went off into a most enchanting account of his 
earliest passion for her at Derby. He told the complete 
story of that romance — how he had stood at night outside 
her father’s house, how he had written poems about her, 
how he had looked and looked at her in chapel and Sunday- 
school, how he had hoped in prayer-meetings that his elo- 
quence might touch her heart. 

“ I was green then,” he said, “ desperately green. I was 
only a narrow-minded prig. It was cheek of me, frightful 
and unpardonable cheek, even to dream of you; but I did 
love you, Phoebe, love you with all my boyish ardor, like the 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


67 

beggar in a fairy tale who dares to love a beautiful princess. 
Think of it; you a solicitor’s daughter, splendidly dressed, 
educated like a lady, and lovely as an angel. I a poor news- 
agent’s son, my clothes second-hand and shabby, my knowl- 
edge of the world got only from books, my position a jour- 
nalist on the staff of a small Radical newspaper! And I 
dared, I presumed, to love you! I see as a proof though, 
that I was conscious even then of power and ability. But 
now how much deeper and stronger is my love! I know 
the world. I have broadened my mind. I am a Londoner 
associated with the organization of the Liberal Party. And 
I have set the whole world thinking with my articles in the 
London Herald. How happy I am! How proud! How 
conscious of power ! All the prizes I win and all the laurels 
I may earn shall be laid at your feet. Two days ago, Phoebe, 
I was a nobody. To-day I am a man of note, and the hap- 
piest lover under our Heavenly Father’s dear blue sky ! ” 

That night, when Mr. Christopher Jiggens returned from 
the City, Mrs. Jiggens flew down the stairs to meet him. 

“ Come in here,” she said mysteriously, leading the way 
into the drawing-room. 

He entered with his shining hat upon his head, his dogskin, 
black-stitched gloves on his hands, his crutched stick still 
grasped in the middle and held against his breast, the tooth- 
pick which he had sucked from London still between his 
teeth. 

“ It has come to a pretty pass ! ” she announced. “ What 
do you think? I saw them this morning on the Common, 
arm in arm, and as close together as our Ampelopsis vetchii 
and the wall of our house. Oh, there’s no mistake about it. 
I shouldn’t be the least surprised to find that they are secretly 
married. Now, what do you think of that? In public! 
On Clapham Common ! Hundreds of people about ! ” 

Mr. Jiggens worked the toothpick about in his mouth for 
a moment or two, and then said : “ The old man sent him 


68 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


a check for fifty guineas this afternoon, and told him to 
call to-morrow evening. The young squit has been writing 
articles in one of their beastly Radical papers. Something 
about slums and the working classes. The fellow’s infer- 
nally dangerous. These Dissenters always are. I loathe 
the breed. No patriotism, no respect for their superiors. I 
think it’s time I cooked his goose for him.” 

And Mr. Jiggens crossed the room to the looking-glass 
over the mantelpiece, considered his image with a critical but 
approving scrutiny, removed his shining tall hat from his 
pomatumed head, and, turning round again, presented his 
cheek to his wife, asking how she had been all day, and how 
“ the kid ” had behaved, and whether she would care for a 
stroll. 

He had the feeling that he ought to show himself to the 
ladies of Clapham. 


XI 

Fifty guineas was good, but Maurice had hoped for more. 
However, an invitation to the house at Clapham was a sign 
of improved relations. He might be able at this interview 
to persuade Mr. Champness to draw another check, and to 
show a greater enthusiasm for the ideas of a working-man 
candidature. 

He was shown neither into the drawing-room nor the 
dining-room. The servant led him into a small dark cham- 
ber at the back of the house, and looked at him rather 
sniffingly as he entered. 

“ This may mean,” reflected Maurice, “ that Mr. Champ- 
ness is going to speak confidentially to me. Perhaps he will 
ask me to find him a constituency, and set the machinery in 
motion for a baronetcy. I should not be surprised.” 

He looked about him. It was one of those dreadful back 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


69 

rooms which grow chilly, inhuman, and forbidding from 
disuse ; it was the study of Mr. Champness, never entered by 
anybody else, never used by him except on the rarest occa- 
sions, and then briefly enough. The chair at the desk had 
been used occasionally, but the arm-chair never. The clock 
on the mantelpiece had run down. The theological works 
filling the shelves as tightly as sardines filling a tin had 
the appearance of policemen standing immovably on parade. 
The creeper which hung like a pall over the one window 
muffled the air and defied the light to enter if it dare. There 
was only one playful note in this horrid room, a croquet- 
mallet between the bookcase and the wall. 

The door opened and Mr. Champness entered the room 
slowly, solemnly, an appalling sternness in his face. Maurice 
was struck dumb. He knew immediately that something 
had happened to discover his romance. He neither ad- 
vanced nor put out his hand. 

Mr. Champness stood still just inside the door, confront- 
ing him. “What have you to say for yourself ?” he 
demanded. 

“ I don’t understand ” 

“You do, perfectly well. Don’t prevaricate, sir! Your 
guilt is written on your face. What have you to say to 
me ? ” He advanced another step. 

“ Mr. Champness,” said Maurice, swallowing in his 
throat, standing first on one foot and then on another, taking 
his handkerchief from his pocket and rubbing it in the palms 
of his hands, “ I am ready, perfectly ready, to answer any 
question you may put to me. I can guess what the matter is 
to which you refer, but until you put your questions I have 
nothing to say.” 

The old man was measuring him with a steady gaze. He 
saw in Maurice’s pale face and startled eyes the visionary 
and the fanatic ; he thought that he saw behind the visionary 
and the fanatic a certain power of mind that was as great 


70 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


as his own, but exercised in some region of life about which 
he knew nothing. 

“ You have come to this house under false pretenses,” he 
said fightingly, and advanced another step. 

“ That is not true,” replied Maurice quietly. 

“ You have taught my daughter to deceive her father.” 

“ Never!” 

“ You have corrupted a perfectly innocent nature.” 

“ Dare you say such a thing ? ” 

“ And, put upon trial, you assume an air of righteous 
indignation. Confound you, sir! I’ve half a mind to kick 
you out of my house ! ” He advanced another step, seeming 
to expand at that moment like a turkey-cock at full-spread. 

“ Mr. Champness ! Mr. Champness ! ” cried Maurice, 
drawing back, and speaking with reproachful horror. “ Is 
it possible that you forget the religion which we both pro- 
fess ? Kick me out of your house! Is that the way for one 
Christian man to speak to another ? I am surprised — I am 
pained. Someone must have poisoned your mind against 
me. You are heated. You are beside yourself. Reflect 
for a moment. Are you the man now who once prayed 
with me ? Are you the man who has encouraged me, helped 
me, generously helped and stimulated me, in my work for 
the Liberal Party and the Connexion? We have knelt in 
the same chapel. We have prayed in the same meeting. If 
— if I have done you a wrong, tell me of it, reproach me with 
it ; you will find that I am not slow to acknowledge my faults 
and humbly to crave your forgiveness. But, Mr. Champ- 
ness, don’t, I beg you, speak of kicking me out of your 
house ! ” 

The financier munched his lips together. One of his 
hands grasped the lapel of his coat, as if it were trying to 
hold him back ; with the fingers of the other hand he was 
drumming irritably on the top of the desk by the side of 

Iv'ch he now stood, tall and minatory. 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


7i 

“ I have not summoned you here to discuss religion,” he 
said contemptuously. “ Religion does not encourage decep- 
tion and hypocrisy. I have summoned you here ” He 

stopped, remembering that he had requested Maurice to call 
before Jiggens had told him of the dreadful scene on Clap- 
ham Common. “ However, I do not intend to waste my 
time with you. Without further words, I would have you 
to know that your perfidious conduct has been discovered. 
You have dared, most insolently, to contemplate the pre- 
sumptuous idea, forgetting your position and my position, of 
marrying my daughter ! Without asking my permission, as 
any honorable man in your position would have done, you 
have met her in secret, plotted and planned in secret to get 
her innocent nature under your influence, and have actually 
dared — upon my soul, I can scarce keep my hands off you ! 
— dared to walk about in public with your arm, sir — your 
arm through the arm of my daughter ! ” 

It flashed through the mind of Maurice that a very similar 
charge had been brought against him by Gowler, and for a 
moment he had the strange and shattering sensation of 
feeling himself to be an incorrigible Don Juan. He had the 
ghastly inclination which comes to some men in crises of this 
kind to burst out laughing ; but instead, trembling with fear 
lest involuntary laughter should convulse him, he let off 
steam by means of a sickly and most provocative smile, which 
he hoped might assure his interlocutor that the matter was 
less serious than he thought it to be. 

But Champness burst out, “ Stop your grinning, sir ! ” in 
a voice of thunder. “ How dare you grin at me like that ! 
I believe you to be a rogue and a villain — a dirty hypocrite, 
a scheming adventurer! All your talk about religion is 
hypocrisy — hypocrisy and cant! I’ll have you dismissed 
from the Political Fund. I’ll have you flung into the streets. 
Daring to grin at me, you impudent puppy, you ! ” 

“ This is most unseemly of you, Mr. Champness, most 


72 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


unseemly ! ” Maurice exclaimed. “ I smiled merely because 
I rejoiced to find that your charges against me are so frivo- 
lous.” 

“ What ! ” cried Champness. “ Are you going to lie to 
me? I’d have you to know, sir, that my daughter has con- 
fessed everything. I think if I have not already cured her, 
the knowledge that her religious saint and political hero is 
a liar will finish the matter. I shall report that fact to her 
with other things — your insolence, your grinning insolence, 
and your psalm-singing cant ! ” 

Maurice pulled himself together. It is all very well to 
write and to read about such ordeals as this, but people of 
a sensitive and highly-strung nature, those who know how 
hard a matter it is to tackle a chauffeur, to correct a parlor- 
maid, or to go into a witness-box, will realize and will gener- 
ously acknowledge that Maurice was in a very uncomfort- 
able and distressing position. When, therefore, I say that 
Maurice pulled himself together, the reader must remember 
that the man who performed this feat was a man whose heart 
was going nineteen to the dozen, who was moist in every 
pore, whose knees were continually inclined to give, and 
whose brain seemed to be boiling in his head and steaming 
through his eyes. 

“ Mr. Champness,” he said in a low voice, his face deadly 
white, his breath coming in sniffing gasps and quivering 
snorts, “ you speak to me as if I am dirt beneath your feet. 
You arrogate to yourself a piety, a nobility, a superiority 
which, whether you are entitled to them or not, are used by 
you on the present occasion to degrade me. That is the 
position of a Pharisee. I leave you to reflect upon the fact 
when I am gone. But I will tell you now, that I consider 
myself, in spite of all my faults, worthy to stand in your 
presence and worthy to be treated with respect and courtesy. 
I know the differences in our position. You are rich, I am 
poor. But you are not so rich as Dives, and I am not so 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


73 

poor as Lazarus. There is one equality between us, as there 
was one equality between Dives and Lazarus — we are both 
sons of God and heirs of eternal life. And there is another 
equality between us, Mr. Champness, which did not exist 
between Dives and Lazarus — the equality which exists be- 
tween all men in an age of democracy. I stand up to you 
without shame and without dishonor. I say to you that, 
in your own house, to which I was invited in a letter that 
gave no indication of change in your disposition towards me, 
you have grossly insulted me and scandalously traduced me. 
Until you acknowledge your wrong, until you confess that 
you have behaved towards me as no man has a right to 
behave towards another, I shall refuse to give you the 
explanation you have demanded of me. I do not ask you to 
beg my pardon — only the most perfect Christian could have 
grace sufficient for such an act — but I do ask you to acknowl- 
edge that you have erred in your behavior towards me, Mr. 
Champness — erred, sir, in a manner for which you ought to 
be profoundly penitent.” 

The financier put both hands — they were trembling — to 
the collar of his coat. Regarding Maurice with an exceed- 
ing fixity, and clearing his throat, which was dry with indig- 
nation, and giving a little upward jerk of his head, which 
felt rather heavy and stiff, as though the cramp had got into 
it, he said : 

“ You will leave my house to-night, never to enter it again. 
You insulted my daughter yesterday, but for the last time. 
You will never speak" to her again. Let me advise you, if 
your career means anything to you at all, to behave yourself 
in future with the humility and the subservience of a person 
in your position ! ” 

He turned round, walked towards the door, and had his 
hand stretched out to open it, when Maurice, catching sight 
of the croquet-mallet, and half inclined to use it against his 


74 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


adversary, strode after him, came close to his side, and said, 
with great heat and passion : 

“Are you attempting to intimidate me? Do you think 
you can bully me? What! you will throw me into the 
streets ? Try ! Attempt it ! I dare you to do it ! ” 

He was trembling with indignation. 

“ The day will come, Mr. Champness, when you will break 
your heart with shame to think of this cowardly and atro- 
cious threat. Your power is great now, but it is not omnip- 
otent. You could not exist for twenty-four hours if de- 
mocracy decreed that you should take off your coat and work 
for your living. Men exist in England to-day who neither 
fear you nor respect you, who regard you as the leech and 
the parasite of labor — an enemy of the people. Take care, Mr. 
Champness, take care what you say to me. I am not a man 
to be frightened, nor a man to be insulted. You turn me 
out of your house ! — take care I do not pull the house about 
your ears. You refuse to let me see your daughter! — take 
care that daughter does not come to me, never to see you 
again, never to wish to see you again ! ” 

Champness swung open the door, pointed with a shaking 
hand to the hall, and shouted out : 

“ Let me hear not another word ! Get out with you — out 
of my house and out of my sight ! ” 

Maurice looked him full in the eyes. 

“ I may live,” he cried, “ to regret what I have said to 
you ; but you will remember to your life’s end what you have 
said to me, remember it with sorrow and remorse ! ” 


XII 

Trembling with indignation, Maurice returned to his 
lodgings. He felt as if he had been tossed in a blanket, 
dragged through a thorn hedge, treated as a football, and 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


75 


ducked in a sulphur spring. The poor fellow tried to think 
connectedly, but could not ; his brain refused to keep still — it 
jumped about like one of those little cork balls wriggling and 
bumping in scientific shop-windows on the top of a spray of 
water. 

He gained his room without molestation from the Gowler 
family. Grateful for this minor blessing, he locked the door, 
lighted the gas, and threw himself face downwards on the 
bed. 

Was she lost to him? That was his first question. Be- 
fore he could answer it, however, a second question fizzed in 
his brain. Would he be dismissed from the Political Fund? 
Across the nightmare of that question flashed the blaze of 
his glory as a journalist. But suppose he rose to be the 
greatest journalist of his day, became perhaps the editor of 
a newspaper that revolutionized the entire social order and 
brought Millennium to the earth in a glass coach drawn by 
eight cream horses as fat as the Lord Mayor’s coachman, 
how would that minister to his own personal happiness, how 
would that satisfy the craving humanity in his poor mortal 
heart, if Phoebe were lost to him ? 

He could not disguise from himself that, with all her 
beauty and distinction, Phoebe was somewhat lacking in 
spirit. It had cost him a considerable effort to stand up to 
the financier. He could not imagine Phoebe playing so 
heroic a part. He was something of a lion, but Phoebe was 
entirely of the ovine order. She would submit, she would 
bow. Whatever Mr. Champness had to give her she would 
take lying down. 

As this dreadful prospect presented itself to his imagina- 
tion, the conviction that Phoebe was now definitely and irre- 
vocably lost to him slowly and gradually fastened itself into 
his mind with so many red-hot screws of hopeless and mock- 
ing despair that he sprang from the bed with a groan, thrust 
his hands through his hair, and began to pace the little room 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


76 

in a very agony of dejection, striving with all the splendid 
courage of his fine nature to wrench these screws out of his 
heart, and hurl them into the bottomless abyss of non-exist- 
ence. 

At last, unable to bear the torture of disordered thoughts, 
he dragged a chair to the table, dipped his pen into the ink, 
and set himself to write the letter of his life. He wrote for 
two hours. If he had been a man of business, he might have 
said all that he did say in three or four lines. A man like 
Mr. Champness, for instance, would have written : “ Dear 
Phcebe, — I beg you to have faith in me, and to wait till I 
am in a position to have another go. In the meantime kindly 
inform me that you are not indifferent to me, so as to con- 
firm the impression you have already given me. With kind 

regards, yours still truly, ” This was, indeed, the sum 

of Maurice’s letter. But Maurice being something of a poet, 
and his letter being written with a quill plucked from the 
wing of his frustrated ambition, and dipped into the blood of 
his fractured heart, ran to a considerable number of sheets. 
And at the end it was a letter far more likely to sway the 
affections of a woman, far more likely to create in the heart 
of even a meek and submissive and ovine woman one of 
those heroic and impetuous passions which are capable of 
defying lions in the way and dragons in the air, than the 
model missive hypothecated above. 

When he had read and re-read this letter several times, 
Maurice drew his chair to the window, stood upon it, thrust 
his heated head rather gingerly between sash and blind, and 
looked into the night. The murmur of the great city rose 
to his ears, as it always does on these occasions. The breath 
of London, compounded in that neighborhood of smoke, 
fried fish, and cab-stables, came about him with a chill, cool- 
ing, ghost-like indifference. He looked above crowded 
chimney-pots to the pallid stars of a cloudy sky. In the 
distance he could see the red, orange, and violet flames of 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


77 

tall stacks licking at the darkness of the upper regions. By 
craning his head to the right, at the risk of dislocating his 
neck, he could catch a glimpse of the Houses of Parlia- 
ment. 

He thought of his fame. Yesterday he had been nobody — 
to-day he had set the Thames on fire. At the center of the 
greatest Empire the world had ever known, he, the son of a 
newsagent in Derby, had lifted up his voice, and had been 
heard of all men. He thought of the millions of people 
making up the population of London — he knew the exact 
figures from Whittaker — and flattered himself with the diz- 
zying thought that out of all those multitudinous millions he, 
Maurice Sangster, was famous — famous as Byron had been 
famous, and Dr. Johnson, and John Milton, and Bacon. He 
had written, and men had taken note. Even now, at this 
very moment, in the clubs of London men were discussing 
his articles. Mr. Gladstone had, no doubt, read what he had 
written. Mr. John Morley, Mr. Bright, the Duke of Argyll, 
Lord Tennyson, Herbert Spencer, and perhaps Mr. Ruskin, 
had spent the greater part of that day reading his second 
article, and conferring about it with their distinguished 
friends. If only Carlyle had lived a little longer! 

And yet, in spite of this glorious and bewildering fame, 
he was wretched and sick with fear. He drew in his head, 
got down from the chair, and read his letter over again. 
Then he sat down and added this postscript : “ My position 
even now is absolutely secure. I have made my name as a 
journalist. More people are now reading every day what I 
have written than Sir Walter Scott could boast of at the 
height of his fame. And yet your father treated me as if I 
were the vilest dirt of the street ! He insulted me, outraged 
my feelings, and degraded me in a most abominable manner. 
But I will prove to him before a year is overpast that I am 
someone in the world. He shall withdraw every word he 
has said against me ; he shall beg my pardon. And you, 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


78 

Phoebe, you will be loyal to your love ! God has given you 
that love. Honor your father so long as he does not thrust 
himself imperiously and tyrannically between you and the 
Divine Will. But whatever happens, cling to your love as a 
holy and a sacred possession. Let no man rob you of it. 
Say boldly and fearlessly that you will never be false and 
traitorous to the purest passion of your virgin heart. Cour- 
age, my angel, courage ! Summon to your aid the angel of 
victory. I am conquering the world only to lay it at your 
feet.” 

He slept not at all till Big Ben had crawled round to the 
small hours and sounded the quarter after two; and after 
that but badly, tossing feverishly, groaning, dreaming, wak- 
ing every now and then with a start. Once he was obliged 
to rise and make terrifying noises out of the window to a 
party of cats on the cistern. Once he sprang up from the 
pillow to ward off a murderous blow from Mr. Champness, 
who was crouching on the foot of his bed with a croquet- 
mallet raised above his head. And at another moment, he 
woke with a cry of terror just as he was flinging the incon- 
venient Maud Gowler to the ground in order that he might 
plunge into the waters of Island Pond and drag the drowned 
body of his dearest Phoebe to the bank. 

When he was dressed, he came out of his bedroom, feeling 
very heavy and sick, into a reek of fish ascending from the 
basement. He descended the stairs with his letter in his 
hand. In the passage he encountered Maud Gowler with a 
broom. 

“ What a smell of fish,” he said. 

“ Fish? No, herrings ! ” she replied, shaking her head, a 
look of blank stupidity on her face. 

He could make nothing of this answer, and walked to the 
door. 

“ You aren't never going out without your breakfast!” 
she called after him. 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


79 

He turned round. “ I’m not very well this morning. I 
couldn’t eat anything. And I’m very busy.” 

“ You’re killing yourself,” she said, “that’s what you’re 
doing. I suppose you're in love, and she isn’t ! ” 

He thought to himself : “ She is suffering as I am suffer- 
ing. Poor thing! I am sorry for her. In her degree she 
knows, as I know, the bitterness of life.” 

At the first newsagent’s shop he bought a copy of the 
London Herald , and opened it eagerly as he walked along 
to read his third article. He became so absorbed that he 
passed the post-office with Phoebe’s letter in his hand. What 
a splendid article it was ! He bumped into telegraph boys, 
collided with lamp-posts, and suffered the humiliation of 
being shouted at by little girls pushing perambulators, who 
wanted to know why he didn’t look where he was going to. 

The reading of the article was as nourishing as many 
breakfasts. He folded up the paper, put it under his arm, 
and raised his eyes to the world with cheerfulness and bless- 
ing. It was not for several minutes that he became aware 
of the still unposted letter to Phoebe. 

His brain was now working with its normal precision. 
He went as quickly as omnibus could take him to the private 
house of Dr. Mundy. The reverend gentleman had just 
finished his breakfast, and welcomed Maurice in his study, 
where he was reading the London Herald. 

“ Splendid ! ” he said, jumping up and clapping the young 
man on the shoulder. “ My dear fellow, these are the finest 
things that have been done in modern journalism. I’m de- 
lighted. I can’t tell you how delighted lam!” 

Maurice said, smiling rather sadly : “ I am not likely to 
lose my head, sir, in spite of such generous commendation 
from one whom I so greatly respect.” 

“ What’s the matter? ” asked the minister, peering at him 
closely through his spectacles, and laying a hand upon his 
shoulder. “ Something has happened, eh? You’re in trou- 


80 THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

ble? What is it? Tell me. I shall be only too glad to help 
you.’' 

The sincerity and kindness of the man won Maurice’s 
completest confidence. He told the whole story of his love 
for Phoebe, gave a dramatic account of his interview with 
Mr. Champness, and concluded with the threat of the finan- 
cier to have him flung into the street. 

Dr. Mundy was grave. “You are looking rather high, 
are you not?” he said, lifting his eyebrows and drawing 
down the corners of his mouth. “ Miss Champness, I take 
it, is a lady of some distinction. Her father is a man of 
wealth. Still, love knows nothing of artificial barriers. If 
you love her, you have a perfect right to say so, and if she 
loves you — well, it looks as if you ought to be married. As 
for the threat of her father, I don’t think that is serious. 
It was probably said in the heat of the moment. Still, some 
men can be exceedingly nasty when they are put out, and 
rich men, unfortunately, have enormous power in the Con- 
nexion. However, don’t let that disturb you. I should 
resist any such tyranny with all the forces at my disposal. 
And besides, your position is now secure.” 

And then, sitting down in his arm-chair, and bidding 
Maurice be seated, the minister proceeded to unfold a plan 
which had been in his mind for a day or two, and which this 
story just told him by Maurice certainly seemed to confirm. 
He suggested that the clerk who had been doing the work 
of the Political Fund during Maurice’s absence in Bursby 
should continue to discharge that duty, whilst Maurice 
should set out on a tour of the whole country, visiting every 
principal industrial center, conferring with ministers, organ- 
izing the local political forces, and bringing the scattered 
machinery of political Nonconformity into direct relation 
with the headquarters of the movement in London. 

“ You will have distraction from your personal trouble,” 
concluded the minister; “ it will give Mr. Champness time to 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


81 


cool down ; it will afford you a priceless opportunity of dis- 
tinguishing yourself; and you will be able to add to your 
income by writing for the London Herald. My ambition is 
to get Nonconformity out of the rut, to make it a great 
national force, to associate it with democracy, to change it 
from a scattered and dismembered form of dissent from 
clericalism into the living and conquering religion of a free 
people. Now, if you can help to do that, Sangster, think 
what it will mean ! Why, we shall put your statue up in 
Parliament Square, bury you in Westminster Abbey, and 
write books about you when you are dead! Doesn’t that 
tempt you ? Doesn’t that rouse the lion in your bosom ? ” 

Maurice acknowledged that the idea appealed to him. 
“ But,” he said, with a grim smile, “ before being buried in 
Westminster Abbey, I should rather like to be married in 
your chapel to Miss Champness ! ” 

“ Oh, we’ll arrange that ! ” said Dr. Mundy, blinking his 
eyes. “ Never you fear. I’ll see what I can do in that mat- 
ter. But what you must do in the first case is to distinguish 
yourself, make a great name, have the whole Connexion talk- 
ing about you. Mr. Champness will yield when you are 
called the Gladstone of the Free Churches and the Schnad- 
horst of the Connexion ! ” 

Later in the day Dr. Mundy came to Maurice’s office, and 
told him that his salary was to be raised to one hundred and 
fifty pounds a year. He brought with him a plan of cam- 
paign — a list of towns that Maurice was to visit, with the 
minister’s name and address given in each case, at whose 
house he could stay. He then suggested that Maurice 
should go and see the editor of the London Herald, acquaint 
him with this mission, and ask whether he would not like to 
receive a series of articles describing the condition of indus- 
trial England. 

Tom Fowler, of the London Herald — who wore an eye- 
glass, had a tall, slightly inflamed forehead, and a big shaggy 


82 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


mustache which he was in the habit of gnawing — was glad 
to see Maurice. He congratulated him in a most friendly 
manner on his article, grinning all over his face, chuckling, 
and rubbing the thigh of his right leg. He listened with the 
utmost sympathy to the new proposition, saying “ Yes ” 
•from time to time in a long-drawn acquiescence of ap- 
proval. 

“ A good idea, Mr. Sangster,” he said, in conclusion. 
“ But ” — blinking his eyes, grinning broadly, and shaking his 
head — “ I am sorry to see you attaching yourself so delib- 
erately and whole-heartedly to Nonconformity. I fear it 
may narrow your vision, give a tone to your work that will 
be unfortunate, jeopardize your chances.” He uncrossed 
his legs and leaned forward to the young writer, saying con- 
fidentially : “ Nonconformity, you see — I am a Nonconform- 
ist myself — is a negation; it is not an affirmation. It 
doesn’t grow ; it jumps. It only keeps going by revivals and 
outbursts of sectarian animosity. It doesn’t live. It has no 
traditions. It lacks tolerance, sweetness, light, charm, and 
the Catholic spirit. A man may be a Nonconformist with- 
out much injury to his mind if he is a passive and formal 
Nonconformist, as I am, for instance; but he cannot be a 
working, active, and enthusiastic Nonconformist without 
jeopardy. Think about that. I am sure you ought to.” He 
leaned back, crossed his legs, and, stroking his right thigh, 
continued : “ I would rather that you were working for us 
as a man of the world, as one of our special correspondents, 
than receive your work as the by-product of your Noncon- 
formist activity. There are traces here and there — forgive 
me saying so — in these articles which we are now publish- 
ing of a Nonconformist origin, of a Nonconformist frame 
of mind. I want something in your work, excellent as it is, 
which one finds so superabundantly in Dickens — a large hu- 
manity, a sense of humor, a generous indulgence, a wide and 
affectionate sympathy with all mankind. Now, if you cut 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


S3 

adrift from the Connexion, come to us as a special cor- 
respondent, and go about the country as a free man, I think 
you will do work in this manner. Suppose, for instance, we 
offered you ” — here Tom Fowler became serious and care- 
ful, wrinkling up his inflamed forehead and gnawing his 
mustache — “ an engagement for two or three years, at — well, 
let us say five hundred a year, and all your traveling ex- 
penses, don’t you think that would suit you better than your 
present scheme of operations ? ” 

Maurice felt his heart leap in his bosom. Five hundred 
pounds a year! Why, he could face Mr. Champness on 
that! Special correspondent of the London Herald! Ten 
pounds a week — well, nearly ten pounds a week ! It was as 
much as he could do to sit still. 

“ I feel,” he replied very calmly, “ too committed to Dr. 
Mundy ; I fear I cannot get out of my engagement to him. 
I shouldn’t like to inconvenience him. But won’t you trust 
me to keep my Nonconformity out of my articles? ” 

“ You won’t be able to, Mr. Sangster ! ” 

“ Yes, now that you have warned me. I see the danger. 
In fact, I have always known the danger. And I am not so 
hot a Dissenter as I was, not by a long way — nothing like ! ” 
“ None of the young men are ! ” said Fowler grimly. 

“ I hate clericalism, and I loathe Rome ” 

“That is a mistake,” interrupted Tom Fowler. “You 
should ignore clericalism, and only tease Rome with her own 
history when you’ve got nothing better to do. Never be 
angry with anything, Mr. Sangster — except the Land Laws 
and the Sultan of Turkey. Are you a teetotaler?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I was afraid so.” 

“ But don’t you think that drink is the curse of the 
country? ” 

“ Undoubtedly. I also think that to avoid it ostenta- 
tiously, to denounce it as if it were a Tory measure, and to 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


84 

get excited about it, is very bad for the brain. However, 
the point is this : your work is good, but it can be better. It 
will never be better until your sympathies are enlarged, and 
a sense of humor is cultivated in your mind. Now, I will 
make this proposal to you. We will give you an engage- 
ment for three years at ” — he paused and gnawed his mus- 
tache — “ well,” looking up with a spacious grin, “ at four 
hundred a year — an engagement to write for us when we 
call upon you, and to send us everything you do write. We 
will pay your traveling expenses when you are sent upon our 
business, but the Connexion must foot the bill when you are 
traveling mainly upon theirs. Of course, this engagement 
must carry with it the obligation on your part not to write 
for any other morning newspaper. I think, perhaps, we had 
better say no other London newspaper of any kind, morning 
or evening.” 

Maurice’s soul jumped as if it had been shot. He knew 
now, he realized at last, that he was a person of real and 
considerable importance. A delightful feeling pervaded his 
whole body. He seemed to be of enormous stature and 
robed in purple. Tom Fowler looked dirty and untidy and 
inferior. 

“ Will you let me think it over? ” he asked, with a superb 
composure. 

Fowler watched him narrowly. 

“ Well, Mr. Sangster,” he said good-naturedly, “ I’ll tell 
you what I’ll do. I’ll make you my original offer — five 
hundred a year. How will that suit you? ” 

Maurice never felt in better health, nor appreciated so 
highly the pleasures of self-control. He said calmly : “ I 
should like to think about the matter. You see, this arrange- 
ment, by preventing me from writing for other papers ” 

“All right, all right,” said the editor cheerfully; “we’ll 
make it six hundred a year. A most generous proposition, 
Mr. Sangster. And we’ll pay anything in reason for your 


LOVE AND ZEAL 85 

traveling expenses. Come, there isn’t another paper in Lon- 
don would offer you such terms.” 

“ You said for two or for three years? ” inquired Maurice, 
whose heart was beating like the kettle-drums at St. George’s 
Barracks. 

“ Well, we’ll make it four years. But only on condition, 
mind you, that at the end of the term you give us the first 
right to make you a new proposition. And, mark, the whole 
thing is based on the assumption that you will do your best 
as soon as possible to get quit of the Connexion.” 

Maurice considered the matter. He drew a pocket-book 
from the inside of his shabby coat, pretended to make an 
elaborate calculation, and contorted his pale forehead with 
the rigorous demands of a problem which had no existence 
in fact. 

“ Very well ! ” he answered suddenly, looking up and 
closing his pocket-book with a quickness that would have 
been envied by a commercial traveler. “ And the engage- 
ment will take effect from — when ? ” 

“ I will write you a letter to-night,” replied Tom Fowler. 
“ The engagement can date from to-day. What is your ad- 
dress, by the way ? ” he concluded, leaning forward and 
taking a pen. 

Maurice reflected, flushed, and then leaning forward 
rather too eagerly, as if he had a burning desire to see the 
editor’s pen at work, he gave the address of the Political 
Fund. 

“ That’s a bad omen ! ” grinned Tom Fowler. “ Fd 
rather have your home address, I think.” 

“ I am living in lodgings, and leaving them almost at 
once,” replied Maurice, who thought that Lambeth might 
possibly compromise his position, in spite of the Archbishop’s 
Palace. 

“ Very well. For the present I will address you at the 
Fund. But, Mr. Sangster, it would be better for you to 


86 THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

keep your lodgings and get out of the other thing, believe 
me!” 

As he shook hands, he said : “ Fm sending you fifty 
guineas for the articles.” 

Maurice walked through Fleet Street as if he were the 
proprietor of all its newspapers, the owner of all the paper- 
mills that supplied it, and managing director of Reuter’s 
Agency into the bargain. He was really white with exalta- 
tion. He could very nearly have screamed with delirious 
joy. Six hundred pounds a year! Twelve pounds a week 
— well, nearly twelve pounds! And a reasonable sum for 
traveling expenses. Then, one hundred and fifty pounds a 
year from the Fund. That made seven hundred and fifty 
pounds a year — almost fifteen pounds a week! Why, he 
could take a big house, keep two servants, and afford a cab 
when it was raining ! 

He entirely forgot Phoebe in the first moments of this 
glorious feeling that he was a man of power and position. 

The alternations of fortune! Yesterday morning, fa- 
mous; last night, outrageously treated and sleepless with 
agony and despair ; this afternoon — seven hundred and fifty 
pounds a year! 

It was like him to take a bus to the house of Dr. Mundy, 
instead of a hansom-cab. He thought of Phoebe most of the 
way, but occasionally wondered whether any of the passen- 
gers realized that he was a Special Correspondent. Once he 
took out his note-book, and began to write shorthand. When 
anybody opened a newspaper, he looked to see if it were the 
London Herald. If a newspaper cart drove by, he glanced 
out of the bus to see that his property was being properly 
cared for. 

Dr. Mundy saw difficulties in the suggested arrangement. 
He said that he had no wish to stand in the way of Maurice’s 
advance, but that really he did not think the two engage- 
ments could possibly be combined. However, nothing could 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


87 

be better for Nonconformity than to have a man on the staff 
of a great London paper who was so earnest and progressive 
a Nonconformist as Maurice. He would do his best for him. 
In the meantime let him start off on his present mission as 
soon as possible. 

When Maurice got back to his lodgings, he found a letter 
waiting for him on the battered hatstand in the passage. 
The envelope bore grubby marks of the little Gowlers’ hand- 
ling. He tore it open as he stood there under the dismal 
gas-bracket, guessing at once that it came from Phoebe, and 
pulled out the letter. Was the day of his glory to be illu- 
minated like the Healtheries Exhibition at night, or plunged 
into Stygian eclipse? 

“ Dear Friend ” (she wrote), 

“ I will be true to my love for you. And I will pray 
night and day that God may overrule all things for our good. 
My father is very angry now, but I am sure he will change 
his mind. Leonard is most kind and sympathetic to me. I 
felt yesterday as if my heart were broken, but to-day I am 
calm. I cannot tell you how shocked I am to learn that my 
father treated you with rudeness. I had no idea of such a 
thing. But try to forgive him. And do pray, dear friend, 
as I pray that God may change my dear father’s heart, and 
rule all things in accordance with His holy will. 

“ Your faithful and true friend, 

“ Phcebe Champness.” 

In a postscript she had added : “ My father has not said 
anything yet about my writing to you. Write to me once a 
week, and I will reply. We had better not meet just at 
present.” 

Yes, the colored lights were burning, festooned across the 
night, and the band — all the bands — were playing the Wed- 
ding March — “ Lum-tum-tee-tum-tee-tum-tum ! ” 

Maurice was elated by this letter. He went up to his 


83 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


room in the highest of spirits, and sat down at once to tell 
Phoebe his good news, laughing — yes, sitting back every now 
and then in his chair to laugh aloud. 

When the letter was written — he thought it wise at pres- 
ent to defer posting it till the morning, so that it might ar- 
rive when Mr. Champness had departed for the City — he 
undressed, got into bed, and began to read “ Sartor 
Resartus.” 

“ I must buy Dickens,” he said, putting down the book. 
“ I must study him. In spite of his monstrous and wicked 
caricatures of Nonconformists — in spite, too, of his horrid 
propensities in the guzzling and bibbing lines — he evidently 
has humor. I have read things quoted from him at which 
a religious man could laugh without shame.” 

As he lay waiting for sleep, into the midst of his radiant 
dreams — the radiant dreams of a young man just beginning 
to conquer the world — came Maud Gowler, with a startled 
face, exclaiming: “ Fish? No — herrings!” And this mys- 
terious sentence brought back to his mind the reek of the 
morning, and he fell asleep with the feeling that he was the 
poet Chatterton striving to reach the stars through the 
broken window-pane of a London garret. 


XIII 

If the style of the firm had been “ Champness and Son,” 
one might have pointed to them walking home together, and 
said, “ There it is ! ” appreciating the endurance of these 
well-established old houses in the City which pass steadily 
down the generations from father to son, each father breed- 
ing the particular son not only suitable to inherit the tradi- 
tions of the firm, but to pass them on with mathematical 
certainly to a son of precisely the same quality. 

They were much of a height — Leonard the taller. They 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


89 

both had stubborn heads, high shoulders, abrupt noses, and 
a dogged, obstinate look in the eyes. But the amusing thing 
to notice was the identity of their gait. They both walked 
heavily, emphasizing the pressure of the left foot, pressing 
earnestly on the handles of their walking-sticks, striding 
with the solidity of peasants. The only noticeable differ- 
ence in their gait lay in the carriage of their heads. The 
old man stooped at the shoulders a little, but held his head 
up, staring straight before him, seeing the outside of every- 
thing; the young man stooped at the neck, his eyes now on 
the ground a few paces before him, and now raised and 
turned sideways for a momentary and puzzled inspection of 
physical phenomena. 

“ Do you feel that you will take to the business ? ” 
Champness asked, breaking a long silence. Then, after a 
pause : “ Do you like it ? ” 

They were walking in the pleasant glamor of an autumn 
sunset from the Swan at Stockwell, where they had left the 
tram. 

Leonard did not answer at once. 

“ I don’t think you do,” said the father. 

“ I have been meaning to speak to you on the subject,” 
said Leonard, raising his head for a moment. 

“ You have been thinking about it, then? I thought so. 
Well?” 

“ I don’t like it. I don’t feel that I am suited to it.” 

“ I am sorry to hear you say so, but not surprised.” 

“ I should like to go to the Bar.” 

“ Well, we could put work into your hands.” 

“ Either the Bar or schoolmastering.” 

“ Which do you prefer? ” 

“ I think the Bar.” 

“ Would you live with us, or go into chambers ? ” 

“ I think chambers would be better.” 

How easily it had been done ! No scene of any kind ; not 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


90 

the faintest shock of melodrama. Stubborn men understand 
each other. 

After dinner that night, when Phoebe had gone to her 
bedroom, Mr. Champness said to his son : 

“ Your sister is like you : she is determined not to go my 
way/’ 

“ Most people, I suppose, like to go their own way. What 
do you think of doing ?” 

“ Well, what would you do? ” 

“ I shouldn’t interfere.” 

Mr. Champness nodded his head. He was sitting upright 
in an arm-chair, looking into the empty fireplace. Leonard 
was sitting in a lower arm-chair at his side, a book in his 
lap, an evening newspaper at his feet. The muslin curtains 
were drawn over the shutters ; the white wallpaper with its 
gilt stenciling looked cold in the gas-light. 

“ I think she is feeling the matter very keenly,” said 
Leonard. 

“ I can see she is.” 

“ Do you propose speaking to her again ? ” 

“ I thought about it.” 

“ It is rather hard on you that we both appear to be ” 

The financier smiled. 

“ I am not a tyrant, and I hope I am not a fool,” he said. 

Then, turning his head, and looking at Leonard for the 
first time, he asked : 

“ There are other matters on which we are not quite of 
the same mind, are there not?” 

Leonard glanced up over the rims of his spectacles rather 
uneasily. 

“ Are there not ? ” repeated the financier. 

“ Yes, I think there are,” replied Leonard, lowering his 
gaze, and frowning with a stout oppugnance into the fire- 
place. He began to fidget with one of his waistcoat buttons. 

The old man also turned his eyes to the fireplace. What 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


9i 

they saw there, who can say? — but certainly it was not the 
same thing. 

“ You are not very much in sympathy with our body, are 
you ? ” demanded the financier. 

“ No.” 

“ I thought not.” 

Leonard drew in his breath heavily, humped his shoulders, 
thrust out his lips, and glared at the fireplace savagely. 

“Are you thinking of making a change?” asked the 
father. 

“ My sympathies are largely with the Anglican Church,” 
said Leonard, setting the button free of the buttonhole. 

“ High or Low?” 

“ Well, with the High.” 

“ I’m sorry to hear it.” Mr. Champness was beating with 
the fingers of his right hand on the back of his left. 

“ I have no sympathy with the excesses of what is called 
the Ritualistic party,” said Leonard, stretching out his legs, 
and saving the book on his lap from sliding to the floor. 

“ But you like the High Church party ? It has your sym- 
pathies — the High party ? ” 

“ I appreciate the historical basis, the Catholic character, 
of the Anglican Church — yes.” 

“ All this comes from Oxford, I suppose.” 

“ I began to think about the matter at Oxford.” 

“What is your feeling about the Nonconformist bodies? 
Not very warm, I think? ” 

“ I don’t understand their basis, to begin with. I don’t 
understand how a man can be born a Nonconformist, or a 
Dissenter of any kind. I can understand a man becoming a 
Nonconformist, or a man arriving at a set of opinions which 
makes him dissent from another set of opinions. But I 
don’t see how he can be born into negation or inherit a tradi- 
tion of dissent. You can’t build historically on a founda- 
tion of contradiction and opposition ! ” 


92 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ I see.” 

“ The Anglican Church,” Leonard explained in his slow 
and decisive way of expounding opinion, “ is not a dissent- 
ing nor a protesting Church. It is an historical Church. 
Rome has diverged. The Anglican Church has kept straight 
on. So far as I know, every tradition of the Anglican 
Church is a Catholic and apostolic tradition. If Christ 
founded a Church, the Anglican Church seems to me the 
communion which has preserved most purely the body and 
spirit of that society.” 

“ Very well.” 

After a considerable silence, Leonard said suddenly and 
thoughtfully : 

“ I can perfectly understand the position of a man who 
says, ‘ I don’t want catholic tradition ; I don’t want formal- 
ism of any kind, however hallowed by time and consecrated 
by the saints ; I want a personal and vital experience of reli- 
gion which will transform my own life at its center.’ That 
may be quite right and good. But I think it is a dangerous 
thing to make that single experience a reason for breaking 
the fellowship of Christ’s Church. I am perfectly certain 
that it is a bad and wrong thing to start another Church on 
such a ground, especially when one of the chief objects of 
the new Church is to attack the original and catholic 
Church.” 

Mr. Champness nodded. Then he asked : 

“ What is your position towards Rome ? I should like to 
hear that, if it is not troubling you too much ? ” 

“ I regard her,” said Leonard, rubbing his shoulders into 
the back of his chair, and drawing in his chin, “ as a catholic 
but clearly heretical Church. Even her undoubted Catholi- 
cism is in danger, owing to the Italian character of the Col- 
lege of Cardinals. If it had not been for 1870, she might 
have recovered, but that was her death-blow — for intellectual 
and honest people.” 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


93 


“ What do you mean by 1870? ” 

“ The doctrine of Papal Infallibility,” declared Leonard, 
with the air of a judge. “ The whole Church of Christ may 
call itself in the sphere of ecclesiastical doctrine and disci- 
pline infallible, and the Pope, expressing the voice of that 
Church, may justly claim infallibility; but to asseverate that 
the Pope per se is infallible, or that the College of Cardinals 
is infallible, that is heresy. Also — at least, in my opinion — 
it is nonsense.” 

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked in unbroken quiet for 
five minutes. 

At the end of this long silence Mr. Champness slowly 
drew in his feet, put his hands to the arms of his chair, and 
rose lumberingly to his feet. 

“ Well,” he said, “ we’ve had a good talk; I think we un- 
derstand each other.” 

He then walked to the gas-bracket, and asked his son if he 
were ready for bed. 

Leonard rose with his book in his hand. He opened the 
door, while his father turned down the gas. The old man 
passed on before him into the hall, and went slowly round 
the ground floor, seeing that windows were hasped, shutters 
fastened, and doors locked. He turned out the hall gas, and 
they ascended the stairs in the subdued light of a single 
burner on the upper floor, the old man in front, Leonard 
behind. 

On the first floor Mr. Champness opened the door of his 
bedroom, and then went to the gas-bracket on the landing. 
Leonard came to him then. They kissed each other in their 
usual rough fashion, and said good night. When Leonard 
had ascended to the floor above, the old man turned out the 
landing gas, walked into his bedroom, and shut the door. 

The room was a large one, with a great double bed of shin- 
ing brass against the wall. A ponderous suite of mahogany 
furniture did not minimize the spaciousness of this wide and 


94 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


lofty apartment, which was papered in green and had a bay- 
window overlooking the garden. Mr. Champness looked a 
small man as he walked to and fro in the course of his un- 
dressing, winding up his watch and placing it with his money 
on the table at the bedside, hanging his coat and waistcoat in 
the wardrobe, taking off his collar and tie and laying them 
on the dressing-table. 

Close to the bed, over the table where an old leather-bound 
Bible lay beside the watch and the money, hung a portrait 
in a black ebony frame — a photographer’s colored enlarge- 
ment of a cabinet photograph. When Champness had said 
his prayers, which only occupied him a few minutes, he 
looked, as was his morning and nightly custom, at this por- 
trait of his wife, standing before it in his old-fashioned cot- 
ton nightgown and bare feet, his hair ruffled by the pulling 
of shirt and vest over his head — rather a mournful and 
lonely figure. 

The old lady greeted her widowed husband with the eter- 
nal smile of her unconquerable serenity. It was one of 
those very amiable faces whose commonplace features are 
entirely forgotten in the grace, sweetness, and tranquillity of 
their benevolence. There was a white lace cap on the head, 
with loops of tiny pink ribbon let into the lace, and broad 
lace lappets resting on her shoulders ; cockscrew curls were 
bunched on either side of the face ; the dress was of silver- 
gray silk, with a fichu of white lace on the breast fastened 
at the neck by a large cameo-brooch set in gold. The long 
chain of thin-linked gold which the financier had drawn over 
his head, and which now lay with the watch and money on 
the table, appeared in the portrait round the old lady’s neck. 
One of her hands was holding this chain at her bosom, the 
other was laid upon a Bible upon her lap — the same old 
leather Bible which stood on the table. The photographer 
had given this matron of the bourgeoisie the exquisite and 
delicate coloring of a young girl. 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


95 


Champness said to himself : 

“ They both get it from you, my dear ; she her meekness 
and he his vapors. Eve only given them their obstinacy. 
Old lady, I wish you were here. Yes, I do, indeed.” 

He turned out the gas and got into bed. 

He was still thinking of his dead wife, the dead wife 
smiling in the darkness from the portrait on the green wall. 
He thought to himself: 

“ She never knew how things had improved with us. She 
died when we were spending six hundred a year. She 
was careful to the last, always proud of keeping down ex- 
penses. She thought six hundred a year was a lot of money. 
So it is. But we’re spending nearly a thousand now. What 
would she have said if I had told her that our capital stood 
at forty thousand pounds? What would she say now if 
she knew that my capital stands at a hundred and sixty thou- 
sand? Nobody knows that. I hate ostentation, I hate 
show. No man ought to spend more than a thousand a 
year. Money is a talent intrusted to us. We shall have to 
give an account of it. I wonder if I shall put that canal 
scheme through for Nicaragua; good timber, the finest 
chocolate-trees in the world, excellent crops of coffee and 
rice, and the mines at Chontales only played with at present. 
South Africa seems as if it will be a gold country in the 
future ; I must remember to speak to Arbuthnot to-morrow 
about that Jew fellow. ‘ Fifteen per cent./ says Jig- 
gens, but he minimizes the lack of transport. Railways 
are the thing; I like railways. Keep your eye on the 
Argentine. Ah, that’s a great country. Railways, good 
railways.” 

And he fell asleep with the word “ railways ” rolling 
through his mind like a train through a tunnel. 

It must not be thought that this old man had no answer for 
his son’s criticism of Nonconformity ; it must not be thought, 
because he had lost in London much of his provincial rigid- 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


96 

ity, that he had abandoned his affection for the Free 
Churches. He could have answered well enough. He was 
silent, he was acquiescent, only because he gave his son 
credit for the same obstinacy as he possessed himself. In a 
life occupied with enormous transactions and busied finan- 
cially with the politics and geography of the whole world, 
Champness had learned never to argue with anybody whose 
mind is made up. He boasted that he wasted neither money 
nor time. He claimed that he was not a bigot. If he held 
tenaciously to his own opinions he allowed others to hold 
as tenaciously to theirs. “ Live and let live ” was his motto ; 
his enthusiasm for proselytism was entirely confined to mis- 
sionary subscriptions. You might have known his ability to 
argue with Leonard and to remonstrate with Phoebe had 
you heard him storming to himself next morning as he 
dressed. He always woke crusty; it was while he put on 
his clothes that the fooleries of mankind irritated him, and 
the injuries he had suffered came buzzing at his brain like 
a swarm of bees. He was a tyrant then, an irascible and 
bullying old tyrant. 

“ No historical basis! ” he exclaimed to himself this par- 
ticular morning. “ What does the fool mean ? What’s the 
historical basis for the telegraph-wire or the railway-train? 
I should like to know that. Well, let him go his own road! 
I should like him to see what those Spanish devils have made 
of Nicaragua ! How is it the Roman Catholic countries are 
all backward and ignorant? Where’s the Manchester of 
Italy, the Birmingham of Portugal, the Huddersfield of 
Spain? Stuff and nonsense! Priests are the magic- 
workers and medicine men of barbarous ages ; clericalism is 
the enemy. Gambetta said so. Gambetta was a man. I 
saw how it was when his friends were here. He likes 
music, colored windows, chanting. If he is not careful he’ll 
want vestments, candles, and incense. The business doesn’t 
suit him, perhaps not ; but he wants to be rid of me — that’s 


LOVE AND ZEAL 


97 


what he means. We’ve nothing to talk about, nothing in 
common ; he doesn’t want to go to chapel, doesn’t want to 
meet our Nonconformist friends. High Church — Ritualism 
— yes, and Romanism in disguise! What would Cromwell 
think of our young men? And Milton? What would 
Luther say to our posturing, corner-creeping, image-wor- 
shiping Ritualists, tricked out in fancy needle-work? Eng- 
lishmen! Freemen! It makes me sick!” 

As he buttoned his collar, he said : 

“ I can’t stand her infernal meekness. There she sits, 
mum, always mum, and pale as the tablecloth. Ah, she’s 
an obstinate little pig-headed cat, if ever there was one ! 
I’ll send for her Aunt Mildred. Let her marry that insolent 
young puppy with his cant and his Socialism. I’ll have 
Mildred here to look after me.” 

In spite of this explosive anger the old man descended to 
the dining-room calm and passionless. Phoebe was finding 
the place in the Bible at the head of the table. She came 
towards him without a smile, put her hands on his arms, 
and raised her pale face to be kissed. 

“ Good-morning, papa,” she said. 

He noticed how cold she was even in brushing her cheek 
for a moment with his own, which was hot enough. 

He kissed her, and went to the Bible and Book of Family 
Prayer, feeling for his eyeglasses. 

“ Shall I ring for the servants ? ” she asked. 

“ In a minute ; Leonard is not down.” 

“ I think he overslept this morning.” 

“ He generally does.” 

He placed the eyeglasses on the end of his nose and sat 
down. 

She came close to him in order to lower the flame of 
the stove. He was running his finger down the page of 
the Bible, his head a little tilted to see through his glasses, 
his lips pursed up, his chin pressed forward. 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


98 

“ You’ve made up your mind, I think, to marry that 
young man ? ” he demanded, still looking for the place. 

She raised herself from the lamp, folded her hands in 
front of her, and looked at him. 

He glanced at her over the rims of his eyeglasses. 

“ I shall never marry anybody else,” she murmured quietly 
but firmly. 

“I thought not.” He returned to the Bible. “ Well, you 
had better write to him and arrange matters. I suppose 
he can keep you ? ” 

“ What do you mean, papa ? ” 

“ I mean what I say. I suppose he can keep you ? ” 

“ Yes ; he is well off.” 

“How well off? I’m entitled to ask that, I think.” 

“ His income is ” 

“Income! You mean wages, don’t you?” 

“ I don’t know what it is called, papa, but he earns be- 
tween seven and eight hundred a year.” 

“ Does he, indeed? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Very well, then. You can get married at once. Ring 
for the servants.” 

She stood in the same position. A slight tremor ran 
through her body. Her face, which had flushed a few 
minutes before, became very white. With a little cry, her 
hands spread in front of her, she stumbled forward, knelt 
at his side, placed her hands on his arms, and said : 

“ Can’t you be kinder, papa ? Please be kinder to 
me!” 

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, drew away from 
her, and said, catching the eyeglasses which had fallen 
from the end of his nose : 

“ Come, come, we don’t want scenes. Ring the bell. 
Let one of the servants go for Leonard. We’re over our 
time now.” 


LOVE AND ZEAL 99 

Then he added, with a short laugh, putting on his eye- 
glasses : 

“You’ve got your own way, haven’t you? What more 
do you want ? ” 

She rose from her knees, and said to him : 

“ You don’t forbid me to marry, papa, but you won’t 
consent? That’s what you mean, isn’t it?” 

“ Precisely.” 

“ If mamma had been alive I think you would have 
treated me more kindly.” 

“You are of age. You are free to do what you like. I 
don’t forbid you to marry the man you have chosen, and I 
don’t attempt to make you marry a man you don’t like. 
But you can’t expect me to approve of your marrying a 
man I regard with disfavor — a young gentleman who had 
the impudence to call me a Pharisee. That would be ab- 
surd. I wouldn’t have done it for your mother, and I 
don’t think she would have asked me to do it. Certainly 
I shall not do it for you! Ring the bell, please.” 

Leonard came down, rather shaggy-looking, buttoning 
his waistcoat. The servants entered behind him. Before 
they were all seated Mr. Champness announced: 

“ Gospel of Luke, chapter eleven, verse twenty-nine.” 

When breakfast was half over, he said to Leonard, low- 
ering his newspaper and looking over the top of the sheet 
and over the top of his glasses: 

“ There is no need for you to come to the office again. 
You’d better see about chambers and make your arrange- 
ments. I’ll provide you with a hundred a year till you can 
earn your own living.” 

As he was leaving the house he said to Phoebe, who still 
came every day to see him off: 

“ I’m writing for your Aunt Mildred to come and take 
charge here. You will be perfectly free to consult your 
own convenience after she has arrived.” 




PART II 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 

I 

In spite of the rain, which came down as if it liked it and 
wanted to frighten the next rainbow out of its life, the 
square was filled from side to side with an enormous crowd 
of people, the blinds of the houses were drawn up, and many 
of the balconies were occupied. Here and there an un- 
lucky umbrella, shining in the gaslight, might be seen 
pitching and tossing over the heads of the multitude like a 
fisherman’s boat in a stormy harbor. For the most part, 
however, the crowd faced towards the town-hall with no 
effort beyond an upturned collar to protect itself from that 
downpour. 

It was a crowd careless of weather — that rather liked 
bad weather, in fact — a Lancashire crowd of short-legged, 
broad-chested, white-faced people dressed in rough work- 
aday clothes, with shabby caps on their heads and knotted 
scarves around their throats. They were infinitely more 
cheerful than an audience of comfortable people at the 
Opera. Some of them were singing, others were calling, 
shouting, whistling; most of them were laughing. When 
a couple of mounted policemen forced a passage through 
the thick of the multitude, driving people in a swaying 
sudden rush into denser and almost suffocating congestion, 
the crowd imitated the screams and high-piping shrieks of 
women in a panic. Bursts of merriment were well-nigh as 
continuous as the rain. 


ioi 


102 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


A line of policemen, slipping about on their feet and 
leaning their backs against the crowd, endeavored to pre- 
serve the sanctity of a dangerously narrow space in front 
of the town-hall. A carriage was drawn up here, looking 
as if it had been fished out of a river and left drawn up in 
front of the town-hall since last St. Swithin’s Day; the 
two dejected horses were soaked to the skin; the mackin- 
tosh cape of the coachman on the box streamed with water, 
the brim of his hat dripped on to his nose, the reins were 
so heavy that his arms ached. It was difficult to see that 
the candles were lighted in the lamps of this streaming 
carriage, so clouded and smeared was the glass. 

A crowd of men and women, very much more sedate 
than the crowd in the square, stood under the portico of 
the town-hall. The vestibule was crowded, too; policemen 
and officials lined the marble staircase, and a congregation 
of important-looking ladies and gentlemen stood about in 
groups talking with animation, breaking up every minute, 
and reforming again in fresh combinations. These for- 
tunate people, with room to move about and almost en- 
tirely sheltered from the rain, had their backs to the square, 
and were standing tiptoe peering over each other’s heads 
through the tall glass doors into the vestibule. 

Every now and then a roar like the falling of a huge 
wave sounded from the interior of the town-hall, and was 
heard by those under the portico, who each time pressed 
nearer to the doors, and asked themselves, with great eager- 
ness, if that were the end. Presently there was a roar of 
cheers louder than ever before, a roar so loud that it was 
heard by many of the people in the square, who instantly 
took it up and shouted themselves hoarse with delight. 
Under the portico everybody said breathlessly : “ That’s 

the end ; it’s over now. He’ll be here in a minute.” 

The roar of cheers was still sounding when a movement 
occurred in the vestibule. Down the handsome marble 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


103 


stairs came a little man, bald-headed, very white of face, 
and very black of eye, a little, thin, pinched, and vindictive- 
looking creature with a nose that traced his descent, in one 
swift unenviable line, to the astutest of all the Israelites 
who spoiled the Egyptians, or in any case to the first Jew 
who ever started with nothing, and ended up with every- 
thing but a good name. Down he came, running and ges- 
ticulating and chattering, his black eyes shining like those 
of an angry monkey, his red lips — redder for the blackness 
of his clipped mustache and beard — shining like a clown 
in a rage, and his little trifling arms pushing and shoving 
at people in his determination to assert a tremendous im- 
portance. 

Only a few took any notice of him, and these said to 
their neighbors, “ That’s Benjamin Girshel,” proud of their 
knowledge, but too much absorbed in something else 
for further disquisition on the subject at that particular 
moment. 

The little Jew, who was accompanied by a couple of 
young and excited stewards in rather stiff frock-coats, 
with party colors in their buttonholes, and who had clearly 
gone to the expense of a shampoo for the occasion, having 
that wonderfully saponaceous appearance associated with 
the wash-and-brush-up of a barber in a smart line of busi- 
ness, managed to force his way through the crowd under 
the portico till he came to the steps, where he stood, bare 
and bald-headed and minute. A roar of cheers, splendidly 
derisive, greeted hi9 appearance. With the two fussy 
young brushed-up stewards on one side, and an uncom- 
monly massive policeman of the roast-beef and plum- 
pudding order, all the burlier for his streaming cape, on 
the other, Mr. Benjamin Girshel cut a sufficiently comic 
figure to charm any crowd in the world, but particularly a 
Lancashire crowd that had waited near two hours in a 
sousing rain. 


104 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


While he stood there, consulting with the policeman, look- 
ing anxiously at his watch, pointing to the carriage, and 
flashing his eyes over the almost insoluble congestion of 
the square, the people started to bawl, “ Speech, speech, 
speech ! ” laughing, whistling, and waving their caps. 

To their amazement and uncontrollable amusement the 
little creature suddenly raised his head, descended another 
step or two, and began to shout into the rain and the gas- 
light and the din of the multitude what had all the ani- 
mated appearance of a most passionate harangue. Sen- 
tences floated out into the night, dissected by laughter and 
drowned in ironical cheers. On he went, wholly uncon- 
scious of the effect he produced, his voice getting hoarser, 
his arms whirling like washing on a line, his little twisted 
and bent-up body jumping about in a perfect frenzy of 
eloquence. “ We are not Liberals, my friends,” he 
screamed, “ remember that! (Chorus: “We can’t forget 
it!”) We are not Liberals, we are Radicals. (“Three 
cheers for Moses and Aaron ! ”) Radicals! (“ Go home ! ”) 
Enemies of the Liberals, if they don’t do what we tell 
them! (“Your head’s wet, old cock!”) Just as we are 
enemies of the Tories. (“One more river to cross!”) 
The working classes ” (deafening cheers continued for 
several moments), “the democracy of England (“And 
Jerusalem, don’t forget that! ”) are waking up (“ Liar! ”) 
— they are getting on their feet (“Keep off the grass!”), 
they are opening their lips (“Greedy pigs!”), and they 
are beginning (“What, only beginning?”) to say (“Old 
clo’, old clo’! ”) that, come what will (“ Take it home! ”), 
England shall be free!” (Loud shouts of “Never!” 
“Who told you?” “Speak for yourself!” “Get your 
hair cut ! ” And a loud voice singing in broken English, 
“ Oh where, oh where, is my little wee dog ? Oh where, 
oh where, can he be?” — a chorus ultimately taken up by 
the surging crowd and sung with most astonishing effect.) 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


105 


Suddenly, just as the little Jew was about to scream 
for “ Three cheers ! ” and the policeman, who could scarcely 
balance himself on the top step for laughter, was turning to 
the pained and indignant brushed-up stewards to suggest 
that they had better stop the gentleman, suddenly a sharp 
and ringing cheer sounded from the interior of the hall; 
the tall doors were swung open, and a number of policemen 
and stewards appeared under the portico guarding with 
elaborate care a small company of ladies and gentlemen. 
From this inner ring a rather young-looking man of re- 
markable and even distinguished appearance — he was long- 
haired and bearded, and bore a singular likeness to Charles 
Dickens — presently disengaged himself, and advanced alone 
to the top of the steps, where he took off his hat and stood 
solemnly confronting the multitude. 

At sight of him a shout went up to heaven, although it 
had no effect upon the rain — a shout full of welcome and 
acclamation, of gratitude and affection, of worship and re- 
joicing friendship, the shout of Lancashire expressing its 
political opinions in homelike welcome. 

Mr. Girshel, undismayed that this cheer was not for 
him, whipped round, and seeing the young man, pointed 
him out very dramatically to the crowd, as though he had 
been the first to notice him, and then immediately doubled 
up the steps like a disturbed cockroach making for the larg- 
est crack in the wainscot, and took up his stand beside the 
hero, excitedly waving his arms for silence in the manner 
of an amateur conductor passionately endeavoring to make 
a galloping go-as-you-please orchestra aware of his exist- 
ence. 

The young man turned to him, and said : “ Look after 

my wife. Get her to the carriage. We shall miss the train 
if we aren’t careful.” 

“ I’ll see to it,” shouted Girshel. “ Tell the people the 
Liberals have got to do what we tell them; mind you 


io6 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


say that. I’ve just told them: it went like fire.” And he 
plunged into the crowd that was now pressing close behind 
the hero. “ Where’s Mrs. Sangster ? ” he kept shouting. 
“ Mrs. Sangster ! Mrs. Sangster ! I want her. Where is she ? ” 

A silence almost complete suddenly fell upon the crowd. 
Maurice Sangster, standing there bare-headed, looked over 
the multitude to the lighted windows and packed balconies 
of the square, breathing hard, his eyes shining, one of his 
hands closing and unclosing at his side, his whole mind 
strung up to a pitch of incredible excitement. “ The first 
word ! ” he thought, “ the first word ! What shall it be ? ” 
And the extraordinary silence deepened, the immense crowd 
became perfectly still, while he stood thinking what he 
should say. 

He took a short step forward, raised his head, and began 
very solemnly and slowly, the crowd pressing forward to 
catch every word: 

“ Gentlemen ” — a long pause, full of reverence and ex- 
pectation — “ when a traitor comes to Lancashire ” — an- 
other pause — “ the newspapers next day should record a 
murder. (Roars of laughter.) Where do you intend to 
execute me? (Laughter.) Where is the gibbet? (More 
laughter.) How long have I got ? (Much more laughter, 
and a voice, “They are the traitors!” followed by tre- 
mendous cheers.) But they call me a traitor! (“Let 
them! ”) Gentlemen, when we look back upon the history 
of mankind, what do we see? Is it not Truth forever on 
the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne? Perhaps I am 
guilty in their eyes. At any rate they are setting up the 
scaffold. (“We’ll pull it down for you! ”) I am accused 
of seeking to split the Party. (“Rot!”) They tell me I 
am playing the Tories’ game. (“ Not you ! ”) Gentlemen ” 
(a deep silence), “if to insist that the pledge given by the 
Liberal Party at the last election, the pledge which I gave 
myself to the people of Bursby, was the pledge of Peace, 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


107, 

Retrenchment, Reform; and if to insist that as men of 
honor that pledge should be redeemed to the last letter” 
(loud cheers), “not disregarded, not abandoned, not 
prodigally and scandalously and traitorously thrown into 
the waste-paper basket” (loud and continued cheers), 
“ then, gentlemen, then I am indeed a traitor.” With tre- 
mendous and sudden energy, shooting out his right arm: 
“ This is my message to you, men of Nowdham ! Tell 
your Generals — your Generals, idle and worse than idle in 
the field — that if they won’t lead, if they refuse to order 
up the guns and to advance against the enemy — tell them 

that you yourselves (Immense and continued cheering, 

during which the honorable gentleman hurriedly confides 
rest of the sentence to the nearest reporter.) Gentlemen! 
(The same eerie silence invariably produced by this most 
flattering form of address when it is not too hurried), the 
trumpets have sounded for battle, the banners of victory 
are unfurled, the army is impatient to advance” (loud 
cheers), “ but our Generals, our Generals — where are they? 
(“Ah!”) I will tell you. They are in Doubting Castle. 
(Cheers.) But where in Doubting Castle? Again I will 
tell you. They are in the chamber of false oaths and 
perjured honor. (“Hear, hear!”) They are tearing up 
their pledges. (A voice: “Give it them!”) They are 
hiding away the dress they wore when they appeared be- 
fore the people asking for their votes. (“Hear, hear!”) 
They are collecting dust to throw in the people’s eyes! 
(One long angry roar of furious and maddened rage.) It 
is for you ” — shouting down this roar, with a sudden up- 
ward fling of the head and an imperious gesture with the 
right arm — “ it is for you to tell them that you will be 
deceived no longer!” (Tremendous cheer.) 

Mr. Girshel, with his watch in his hand and pushing 
Mrs. Sangster before him, came to Maurice’s side and 
shouted in his ears: “We can only just do it!” Then 


io8 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


forcing his way to the front, he bawled out : “ We are 
Radicals, not Liberals ! ” and grinned very horribly on a 
multitude that was now worked up to such a pitch of ex- 
citement that they were not even aware of his appearance. 

Phoebe was pushed through the thronging crowd and 
thrust into the damp carriage, which was now swaying and 
swinging as if it were only stitched on to its wheels. 
Maurice followed, with Girshel shoving behind. A police- 
man just managed to shut the door, and then in the window- 
spaces appeared dozens of hands, while white exalted faces, 
contorted with excitement, flashed past those narrow 
squares of grayness, their staring eyes straining to catch a 
moment’s glimpse of the great demagogue. 

The carriage began to move. Girshel thrust out his 
bald head and shouted at the top of his voice: “Friends, 
clear a way for him! To the station! Clear a way! ” 

Maurice slipped his hand through Phoebe’s arm, pressed 
it affectionately, and said to her : “ We are winning hands 
down.” 

She squeezed his hand to her body by the pressure of 
her arm, and said: “You were splendid. You never 
spoke better. I am so proud of you.” 

Girshel drew in his head. “ I prepared the people in the 
square for you ! ” he announced, with a hideous grin of 
self-satisfaction. “ The best overflow meeting I have ever 
seen! I gave them five minutes of lightning. And then 
you came in with your roll of thunder. Snakes, but we’ve 
got the North ! ” 

The carriage could only advance at a walk, and was 
stopped again and again. People stood on the steps, hung 
on to the back, and clung to the rail round the coachman’s 
seat. Rough faces were thrust into the carriage, boisterous 
heartening words of affectionate approval were addressed 
to Maurice, and a clangor of cheers sounded on every side. 

“ Make a way for us, my friends,” cried Girshel. “ Don’t 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


109 


let us miss the train, for God’s sake ! ” He kept turning 
from side to side, speaking to the people at the window. 

They reached the station only just in time for the train, 
and the crowd swept through the barriers, took possession 
of the platform, and cheered and waved their caps, and 
sang “ For he’s a jolly good fellow ” till the train was out 
of sight. 


II 

When Tom Fowler advised Maurice Sangster to culti- 
vate a sense of humor and to broaden his mind with the 
humanity of Charles Dickens, he made a very wise and 
excellent suggestion, but one which was unfortunately 
quite fatal to the youthful journalist in question. 

Maurice read Dickens with might and with main. He 
came so thoroughly under the influence of that immortal 
person as to encourage a Bohemian carelessness in his hair, 
to grow a mustache and beard, to wear a looser cravat 
at his collar, and to buy himself a coat and waistcoat of 
velveteen edged with braid. Further, he took to nocturnal 
wanderings through the streets of cities, entered into con- 
versation with watermen on cab-ranks, addressed interest- 
ing remarks to washerwomen, cross-examined ragamuffins 
in the gutter, and even went so far as to enter taverns, al- 
though he drank nothing stronger than lime-juice, in order 
that he might get as close as possible to the heart of hu- 
manity. 

In spite of this enthusiasm his work for the London 
Herald began to suffer. The truth is, he possessed not a 
particle of humor, and was only telling and convincing 
when he let himself go as an honest fanatic. His articles 
suggested to the bewildered Tom Fowler the effort of an 
Archdeacon to stand on his head in a circus ring, or the 


no 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


laborious struggles of an overfed elephant to imitate the 
moonlight adventure of the cow in the nursery rhyme. He 
wrote to Maurice, and told him bluntly that this kind of 
thing would never do. Maurice, who was just then ar- 
ranging that Dr. Mundy should marry him to Phoebe in 
the following week, was furious. He replied scathingly, 
and when the letter was posted would have given a thou- 
sand pounds to recover it from the post-office. Tom Fowler 
asked him to call, and Maurice went to see him in a thor- 
oughly crestfallen condition of soul. 

The result of that interview was an agreement that 
Maurice should be released from his engagement, and 
should be free to write for any other newspapers. The 
editor of the London Herald , in as artful a fashion as can 
well be imagined, expressed the hope that Mr. Sangster 
would not forget that the London Herald gave him his first 
start, and would occasionally — occasionally — let him see 
more of his work in his original manner. 

Maurice said nothing to Phoebe of this dreadful end to 
his golden dream. They were quietly married at Dr. 
Mundy’s chapel in the presence of Aunt Mildred, Leonard 
Champness, and a few of Maurice’s chapel friends. Phoebe 
departed on her honeymoon in her wedding-dress, which 
was a thoroughly suitable garment, lavender in tone, for an 
income of seven or eight hundred a year. 

Happily Maurice had saved money, and during the honey- 
moon bride and bridegroom were as blissful and contented 
as if they had possessed the purse of the unrelenting Mr. 
Champness. And when, some few weeks after that unfor- 
gettable fortnight of delicious happiness, Maurice very 
tactfully disclosed the true position of his finances, the 
radiant Phoebe declared that she was perfectly sure they 
could live on one hundred and fifty pounds a year, his 
salary from the Political Fund. It was the sweetness and 
cheerfulness of her acquiescence at the awful moment of 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


hi 


disclosure which made the worried Maurice realize to the 
utmost the superb and heroic qualities of his wife’s mind. 

When the first baby was born, to whom Phoebe gave 
the name of Humphry Leonard Maurice, old Mr. Champ- 
ness had sufficiently relented as to be present at the bap- 
tism; but his very handsome gift of a hundred guineas 
took the form of a bank account in his godson’s name, 
and neither Maurice nor Phoebe were a penny better off 
for his condescension. 

At the time of the second baby’s birth the position of 
the young couple was really one of considerable embarrass- 
ment. Maurice and Phoebe had both exhausted their sav- 
ings. The expense of a doctor and nurse was a staggering 
blow ; the weekly bills had jumped up by fifteen or sixteen 
shillings; Phoebe’s incapacity necessitated another servant; 
a small rise in the salary of Maurice went no distance at 
all to avert catastrophe. 

“ Don’t you think, Maurice dear,” Phoebe said to him 
one evening, as he sat pale and harassed at her bedside, 
vainly striving to affect interest in the uncommonly small 
trifle of humanity at her breast who had brought his finances 
to a kind of Baring Crisis, “ that you might go and see 
papa, and talk about our affairs ? ” 

“ Never!” 

“ You know, dear, you have made no advances.” 

“ I never will.” 

“ But don’t you think you might say you were sorry for 
the words you said that evening which hurt and pained 
him ? ” 

“ What would that mean ? It would mean I was after 
his money. I’d rather starve than be a supplicant for his 
favor.” 

“ You called him a Pharisee, Maurice dear.” 

Maurice stood up. “ And so he is.” The worried young 
husband, working himself up, began to pace to and fro. 


1 12 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“What does he do for the poor and suffering? Nothing! 
What does his religion consist of? A formal discharge of 
traditional duties! Your father, Phoebe, has not got in 
his heart one single drop of Christian blood. He has never 
loved. He doesn’t know what love is. Moral? Yes. 
Righteous? Yes, over-righteous. But love! No! I tell 
you he is a Pharisee through and through. He is just one 
of those honest, moral, upright, hard-working, and dutiful 
formalists to whom the words will be addressed on the 
Last Day: ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that 
work iniquity ! ” 

She drew her babe nearer to her, tears came into her 
eyes, and she said: “Is it right, dear, to judge others so 
harshly? After all, he is a good man.” 

“ I do not judge him,” retorted Maurice. “ The Bible 
does that for me. Look at his life. Free from sin, but 
so were the lives of the Pharisees condemned by Christ. 
Sin may keep a soul out of heaven, but deadness to love 
plunges a soul into hell. There are too many Pharisees 
among us. Nonconformity manufactures them by the score. 
Ask Dr. Mundy; ask Reuben Scarffe. The rich men who 
patronize Nonconformity, and die leaving huge fortunes 
behind them, are all Pharisees, damnable Pharisees, enemies 
of religion, workers of iniquity. I’d rather die than go to 
your father. My life is to pull such creatures down and 
trample upon them. I don’t want to kneel to the rich, I 
want to exalt the humble and meek.” 

As it happened an extraordinary change in the fortunes 
of Maurice occurred during the next week. He had gone 
to Bursby, where he was very popular, to address an im- 
portant meeting in favor of the Liberal candidate, who was 
not the working man desired by Dr. Mundy, but a capitalist 
of the peg-top order in politics, very much inclined to 
wobble when the string was withdrawn. Ten minutes be- 
fore the meeting the Liberal agent said to Maurice, de- 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


113 

ploring the candidate’s unpopularity with the people, and 
speaking dismally of their prospects at the poll: “Now, 
if you were to stand, you’d get in easy; they understand 
you, and your style of speaking suits them; but this chap 
dawdles along for an hour, saying nothing and meaning 
nothing — they can see through that.” 

The candidate himself was among the speakers at the 
meeting; the chairman was a local employer; the ladies 
and gentlemen on the platform were representative of 
provincial comfort and respectability. Maurice sat at some 
little distance from the chairman’s table, his eyes never 
wandering from the working-class audience before him, 
his hands never moving to applaud, his lips never opening 
to cheer or encourage the other speakers. His pallor deep- 
ened and his eyes brightened as the speakers hemmed and 
hawed, stammered and halted, became involved even in the 
dreariest platitudes, and meandered on to a tame end. 

When the chairman rose and said that he was now going 
to call upon an old friend, the audience burst into a grate- 
ful cheer of relief, and turned their faces towards Maurice, 
smiling very cheerfully. But Maurice did not smile. His 
brain was on fire, his blood was racing through his veins, 
he saw nothing before him but a mist that swirled and 
vibrated like the vapors of a furnace. He rose to his feet 
like a soldier called to attention. The first words he uttered 
loosed the feelings of the audience and changed the whole 
temper of the meeting. “ Does it matter to you,” he de- 
manded angrily, “ whether you are fooled by a Tory or a 
Liberal? Haven’t you been fooled long enough? Don’t 
you want to get something done? Something that will 
make your lives happier? ” Then, swinging round with hot 
indignation to the candidate, he demanded : “ What are 
you going to do for the homes, the women, the children, 
the lives of these poor people confronting you? ” 

The result of that historic meeting, after protracted nego- 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


114 

tiations at London headquarters, was the resignation of the 
wobbling capitalist and the adoption of Maurice Sangster 
as the official Liberal candidate. Reuben Scarffe in Bursby, 
and Dr. Mundy in London, saved the situation and pre- 
vented a three-cornered contest. Moreover, that meeting 
recovered for Maurice his position on the London Herald. 
He went straight back from the platform to Scarffe’s house, 
and wrote the first of a series of articles entitled “ Radical- 
ism,” which created a sensation about equal to his original 
articles on the condition of Bursby. 

He was returned by an overwhelming majority. He 
entered the House of Commons as a recognized Radical, 
and took his place on the Liberal benches among the sever- 
est critics of the Liberal Government. He was chilled by 
the House of Commons, irritated by its procedure, and 
appalled by its worldliness. His first speech was entirely 
fanatical, and discomforted even the advanced Radicals. 
His second speech emptied the House. 

In spite of this failure he worked excessively hard and 
never lost heart. He foresaw earlier than anyone else that 
Liberalism must either become Radicalism or perish; he 
prophesied a Labor Party ; he insisted that Socialism would 
be the character of all the parties in the State before the 
end of the century. In a year’s time he had made himself 
a nuisance to the Government, and was in high favor with 
the Tories. He had been a Member of Parliament for over 
a year when he met one evening at a Liberal Club the little 
gentleman of the Jewish persuasion introduced to the reader 
in the last chapter. This diminutive Hebrew was an ex- 
ceedingly rich man. His wealth was derived from three 
principal sources — to wit, a swindling Syrup advertised to 
cure every conceivable illness arising from the stomach ; a 
five shillings and elevenpence halfpenny corset guaranteed 
to give comfort and preserve the figure — very popular among 
ladies of the reduced middle-classes; and a patent feeding 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


ii5 

bottle for babies, which probably polished off in a month 
more unfortunate infants in manufacturing towns with a 
form of dysentery, which the disgusted Syrup absolutely 
refused to cure, than were slaughtered by Herod with his 
infinitely more merciful sword. 

The hobby of this extremely energetic and successful little 
parasite was Socialism — not the elegant and graceful and 
scholarly Socialism which became rather fashionable in 
later years with High Church curates and Ruskin-minded 
gentlemen on the sixpenny reviews, but a good, honest, 
atheistical, class-hating, and monarchy-detesting Socialism 
of the Continental description. To Benjy Girshel, as his 
intimates affectionately termed him, everything in life was 
so monstrously wrong that any labor in the tinkering line 
filled him with a perfectly passionate rage. The thing to 
do was to pull everything down and start afresh. It was 
waste of time to go pottering round a wreckage of anti- 
quated machinery with an oil-can and a spanner. “ Scrap 
it,” he said, “ scrap the whole boiling, and start bang off 
with a new pattern.” 

So far Mr. Girshel had circulated his opinions and him- 
self in an unmistakably humble orbit of society. It was 
not until he was elected a member of a very charitably 
committed club, which expressed Liberal opinions in a 
diversity of tongues and accents, that he began to feel his 
feet as a politician. But even here he was obliged to 
circulate among the smaller shopkeepers and tradesmen, 
his appearance more than his opinions and his manners in- 
spiring coldness in the higher circles of the club. A lucky 
acquaintance with a middle-aged, purple-faced journalist, 
whose command of strong language was perhaps slightly, 
but only slightly, excelled by his capacity for carrying 
strong beverages, and whose Socialistic soul was embittered 
by the knowledge that he earned most of his guineas from 
Conservative journals of a very Jingo inflation, and who 


ii6 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


spent the greater part of his day in the smoking-room of 
this easy club in the hope of waylaying some innocent Lib- 
eral editor, possibly not yet aware of his literary abilities 
— chance acquaintance, we say, with this mildewed and 
moth-eaten journalist led the way for Mr. Girshel to a 
more definitely political connection. The journalist knew 
people; people, indeed, paid for the greater quantity of alco- 
hol he consumed. Some of them liked him even. Step by 
step Girshel advanced, but never got into even the most 
distant communication with the gentlemen of the party. 
He started a weekly newspaper, at the suggestion of the 
mildewed journalist, but with no better success. They both 
held the opinion that somebody or other was holding back 
progress and enslaving democracy; and although democ- 
racy refused to buy their paper on a scale that attracted 
advertisers, they still maintained that the whole fault was 
entirely due to this tyrannical Somebody or Other. Girshel 
practically lived at the club. He was always running up 
anc^ down the stairs, popping his head into the various 
rooms, sidling up to famous people, sitting down sometimes 
— so irrepressible was his audacity — beside a group of dis- 
tinguished people, listening to their conversation with a 
benign smile, until they saw him, rose, and left the room, 
when he would dart after one of them, touch his coat- 
sleeve, wink, and utter some remark of a humorous and in- 
gratiating nature; in fact, literally cadging for acquaint- 
ance. Mr. Girshel did everything he could possibly do to 
make himself thoroughly disliked, to get himself talked 
about with a very vigorous disapproval, and to insure his 
being regarded by every sensible person in the club as a 
vulgar little cad of a fellow and a most unmitigated nui- 
sance. 

In spite of this, he came at last, by “ a long persistency 
of purpose,” to make friends with two or three Members 
of Parliament, genuine Radicals and extremely needy citi- 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


117 

zens, whom he first flattered and afterwards patronized till 
he was in a position to dismiss them from his favor. The 
one man he liked, and the one man he stuck to, was Maurice 
Sangster, the young and burning Member for Bursby, 
whose dramatic entrance into politics had filled him with 
enthusiasm. In Maurice, Mr. Girshel assured himself that 
he had found a star to which he might hitch, with only 
ordinary care, the wagon of his dreams — that wagon 
loaded with dynamite and nitro-glycerine, expressly made 
ready for the British Constitution and the English aristoc- 
racy. He fastened himself on to Maurice one night at the 
club, carried him off to dinner at his large house in the 
Finchley Road, and did not let him go until some time after 
midnight, when a compact had been made between them. 

Maurice was to write for Mr. Girshel’s paper a weekly 
diary, to be called “ The Notebook of a Radical M.P.” Mr. 
Girshel was to pay him ten pounds a week for his contribu- 
tion. Further, Maurice was to edit a penny library of 
Radicalism for Mr. Girshel, for which service he was to 
receive two hundred a year. And further still, Maurice was 
told that he could count upon Mr. Girshel for any sum of 
money not exceeding one hundred and fifty pounds a year 
for his expenses in stumping the country as a genuine out- 
and-out Radical. 

This arrangement, while it did not in any way tie the 
hands of Maurice, nor yet reflect upon his honor, freed him 
from a difficulty in his relations with the Connexion which 
had begun to irk him. With all his influence, Dr. Mundy 
could not turn the tide of angry criticism which was sweep- 
ing towards the Member for Bursby. Maurice received a 
great many annoying letters. Certain ministers did not 
scruple to inform him that he was receiving the wages of 
Liberalism to fight the battle of Toryism. In fact, the more 
he showed his colors as a Radical and delighted his constit- 
uents, the more he displeased the religious people in Lon- 


n8 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


don, who so largely enabled him to represent those 
constituents in the House of Commons. 

Girshel solved that problem and many another. 

As Maurice grew in audacity and in power, Girshel be- 
came a more liberal paymaster. He took Maurice about the 
country, paid all his expenses, and organized gigantic 
meetings for him. He grew so enthusiastic at last that he 
told Maurice to call upon him at any time for any sum of 
money he might require. 

And now, when Maurice had moved the adjournment 
of the House, charging the Government with perfidy and 
very nearly defeating it, Girshel had carried him off on a 
campaign that was to sweep the country for out-and-out 
Radicalism at the next General Election. 

“ You stick to me, my boy,” Benjy said to him, “and I’ll 
make you the Prime Minister of England.” 


Ill 

Old Mrs. Sangster opened the little glass-paneled door 
of the parlor and entered the shop for the third time dur- 
ing the last quarter of an hour. Old Mr. Sangster was 
sitting on a low stool behind the counter, close up to the 
bow-window, reading a newspaper by the light of a single 
and overworked gas-jet, intended to attract observation to 
the window and to illuminate the little interior, a double 
duty which it executed with a very imperfect success. The 
shop being two steps below the level of the earth’s surface, 
was rather darker than most, particularly on a winter’s 
evening. 

“ I wonder when to goodness they are coming, if they 
intend to come at all!” ejaculated old Mrs. Sangster, ad- 
vancing into the shop, and taking up a central position. 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


119 

She was short and she was circular — a little choleric old 
body in a black net, a black serge, a black apron, with 
mittens on her hands, and a pair of little old spectacles on 
her nose. If her boots had been visible, one would have 
seen that they were of the pull-on elastic order, with shiny 
toecaps. “ They said half-past four,” she continued, resting 
one hand on the counter, the other arm lying along her 
waist, as if it had grown up in a splint — “ they said half- 
past four, and I prepared for half-past four. It’s now 
twenty to five, every minute of it, and not a sign of them.” 

Old Mr. Sangster, a tall, thin, scholarly and benevolent 
old gentleman, rather like John Stuart Mill, something like 
Edward FitzGerald, and occasionally like Herbert Spencer, 
but with less austerity in the upper lip, and possibly with 
less enormous wealth of learning in the upper story, but 
certainly a deal more of whimsical humor in the eyes, turned 
his head round, lowered it, looked over his spectacles, and 
said “ My love ! ” very reprovingly, and then again “ My 
love ! ” very encouragingly. But Mrs. Sangster remained 
adamant. 

“ There’s the hot buttered toast, that was crisp and 
golden ten minutes ago, turning to leather under my very 
eyes ! ” she said, not moving an inch, all her energy in her 
utterance. “ I’ve no patience,” she continued, “ with people 
who say one thing and do the contrary.” 

“ Oh, hush, hush ! ” cried the old gentleman, getting up 
on his slippered feet, and flinging down his paper on the 
counter. “ Why, that’s exactly what he charges the Gov- 
ernment with — the identical charge! For mercy’s sake, 
my dear love, my dear, dear love, do be careful of your 
words ! ” 

“ Oh, it wouldn’t be you if you couldn’t have your little 
joke, although it is your birthday, would it? But if you 
could have seen the buttered toast ten minutes ago ” 

“ Buttered toast ! ” he exclaimed, laughing, throwing up 


120 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


his hands in affected despair. “ Can’t the woman see the 
absurdity of bringing buttered toast into any sort or kind 
of relation with the British Constitution? Your son, my 
poor, good, stupid old woman, is a Member of Parliament ! 
Don’t you know what that means? Why, he’s managing — 
think of it ! — managing the British Empire.” Scratching his 
gray whiskers, and they were whiskers that emitted a 
sharp, irritable, frictional tone when so treated, the old 
gentleman proceeded : “ Look at India, for instance : three 
hundred million of poor, ignorant people who don’t know 
their right hand from their left; he’s looking after them. 
Look at the Board of Trade: millions and millions and 
millions of pounds of revenue returns; he’s looking after 
that, too. Think of it! And you talk of buttered toast! 
Go along — you and your buttered toast! And if the toast 
is spoilt, haven’t you got shrimps in a glass dish, water- 
cresses in another glass dish, and bloater paste in a pot, 
raspberry jam in a china jar with a gold handle, and loaves 
that were warm when the baker left them not an hour ago ? ” 
He came round the counter, put his arm about the waist 
of his little wife, stooped down to her ear, and said very 
teasingly : “ You and your old buttered toast! I’ve a good 
mind to send that up to the London Herald 

She answered, angrier than ever for the embrace, but 
not driving the old gentleman away : “ Well, he said half- 
past four, and she said half-past four ; the two of them said 
it. I suppose they know their own mind. I didn’t name the 
hour. I had nothing to do with it at all. If people say a 
thing, they should do it. They ought to think of others. 
They ought to think of the inconvenience they cause to busy 
people.” 

“ Think of him, Mrs. Sangster, think of him!” said the 
incorrigible old man, stooping again. “ Future Prime 
Minister of England! Queen Victoria’s greatest comfort 
in her old age. She and he sitting together in Buckingham 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


12 1 


Palace and Balmoral Castle, putting their heads together, 
and saying : ‘ Let’s do this, and let’s do that ! ’ and always 
worrying what they can do for the poor. Think of him 
taking the Turkish yoke off the Christian population of the 
Balkans! Think of him pouring the balm of Gilead into 
Ireland’s broken heart! Think of him teaching the French 
Frogs to behave themselves ! Think of him giving the Rus- 
sian Bear a poke in the eye when it pops its ugly old head 
over the Himalaya Mountains, all covered in snow ! Think 
of him taking down the Church of England ! Think of 
him reducing the National Debt! Think of him making 
the rascally landlords wish that he’d never been born — 
never been born, mind you, born here in Back Street, 
Derby! Why, old lady, if I remember right, you had 
something to do with that little affair, surely, surely ! Come, 
isn’t that the case, or am I wandering in my wits?” 

“ There’s no reason to think he’ll be Prime Minister just 
because he has got into Parliament,” said the old lady, 
stoutly and scornfully. “ Why, there’s hundreds of them, 
and you know that as well as I do. All of them can’t be 
Prime Ministers ! ” 

“ Go along with you, you and your old buttered toast ! ” 
he laughed, and taking his arm from her waist, placing the 
tips of his fingers just inside the pockets of his trousers, 
and kicking out his slippered feet, the tall old gentleman 
made an elaborate and hilarious attempt at swaggering to 
and fro in his very small shop. 

“ It’s ten minutes to five, I’ll be bound it is ! ” said Mrs. 
Sangster, taking no notice of him. 

" Nothing like it ! ” he said over his shoulder. “ Nothing 
like it ! ” He laughed and swaggered till his spectacles 
slipped to the end of his nose. “ Nor yet a quarter. No, 
not the quarter even. I’m sure it isn’t. Two shrimps to a 
piece of buttered toast it isn’t ! ” 

At that moment there was a sound of wheels outside, 


122 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


and the lamps of a carriage flickered over the moisture 
on the many panes of the bow-window, and came to a 
crawling stop opposite the door. 

“ They’re here ! ” he cried, shooting out his hand to the 
latch. 

“ Come at last,” she grumbled, smoothing her apron and 
adjusting her comical little spectacles. “ Well, it’s about 
time they did.” 

The bell suspended on the back of the door set up a fine 
jingle as old Mr. Sangster lifted the latch and gave it a 
quick jerk inwards. The little shop, filled with so many 
things in the stationery line that nobody wanted, and so 
few things in the fancy line that people did occasionally ask 
for and want very much, but in such a hurry that they 
couldn’t leave an order, or wouldn’t; the little shop, with 
newspapers on the counter, its dilapidated library on the 
shelves, and a miserable display of china ornaments with 
the arms of Derby, and candlesticks, sealing-wax trays, and 
dogs in metal, set out in the window — the little shop became 
all of a sudden quite bright and cheerful and prosperous, as 
if a troop of fairies or school children had poured into it, 
and given an order for a thousand pounds. Phoebe entered 
first, but Maurice was pressing close behind, his hands on 
her arms, his face smiling over her shoulder. 

“What a jolly sound!” he exclaimed. “That old bell 
on the door ! Dad, how are you ? Mummy dear — dear little 
mummy ! ” 

They all embraced, and old Mr. Sangster, laughing heart- 
ily, was just turning to close the door upon the outer world 
when Maurice stopped him. 

“ Why, what’s the matter, lad ? ” cried the old gentleman. 

“One moment!” said Maurice, detaining him. “A 
friend of mine is coming in, just to shake a hand with you. 
He won’t stay.” 

At that moment Girshel appeared in the doorway. He 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


123 


was wearing a cloth cap pulled very much down over his 
eyes, and a comfortable, loose-fitting frieze overcoat. Be- 
tween his red lips was an over-big cigar, cocked up in 
American fashion towards the right eye. 

“ Well,” said he, coming suddenly and lightly down the 
two steps which for over a hundred years now had precipi- 
tated many unwary customers into the middle of the shop. 
“ I’m pleased to meet you.” He offered his right hand, 
holding his cigar in the left. “ Son has often spoken of 
you. Feel Eve known you all my life. Very good son. 
Dutiful. Don’t forget the old folks at home, does he ? ” 

“ I didn’t quite catch your name, sir?” inquired old Mr. 
Sangster, stooping down, very eager not to lose a syllable 
of some great and distinguished name in the Liberal Party. 

“ Girshel,” said the Jew, putting the cigar back into his 
mouth — “ Benjamin Girshel. Ever heard of Girshel’s 
Syrup ? That’s me ! ” He glanced at old Mrs. Sangster, 
winked at her, and said: “You’ve got ’em on!” 

The old lady straightened her back and stared indig- 
nantly. 

“ I can see you have. Lord bless you, ma’am ! I can 
tell them anywhere. They pitch rather high, and sit very 
stiff over the hips, don’t they? I see ’em in trams, omni- 
buses, and railway-carriages. I see ’em in the streets of 
every city and town I visit; I see ’em everywhere, and I 
can recognize ’em at once.” 

“ What to goodness does the man mean! ” ejaculated old 
Mrs. Sangster, glancing from her mystified husband to 
Maurice, then picking up Phoebe’s hand, drawing it 
through her arm, and standing very rigid and oppugnant. 

Girshel laughed and grinned. “ Five and elevenpence 
halfpenny!” he said. “You know! Guaranteed to give 
comfort and preserve the figure ! ” 

“ What ! ” cried old Mrs. Sangster. “ The man isn’t 
never talking of my stays, is he ? ” 


124 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ That’s me, too ! ” said Girshel with another grin. 
“ Glad to see you know a good article when it is offered to 
you ! ” And, turning to old Mr. Sangster, he said, “ Rather 
a quiet business, eh?” jerking his head to indicate that he 
spoke of the shop. 

“ Well, it has a leaning that way, sir,” smiled the old man. 

“ Not much doing? ” 

“ Not what you could call very much, except at Christ- 
mas-time and just before Valentine’s Day. Never a roar- 
ing trade, it isn’t, and never was. We have always had 
time to be careful in giving change.” 

“Old-fashioned premises, eh? Not a particularly good 
street — dark, narrow, too far from a main road. How 
many copies of my sixpenny do you sell, I wonder? Not 
two a week, I’ll be bound! You want more gas-lamps out- 
side, and more illumination within. Light catches the peo- 
ple same as moths. The future of trade is illumination. 
Look at that one old gas-jet over there! No good at 
all ! ” 

Old Mr. Sangster laughed and rubbed his hands. “ Par- 
don me, sir,” he said, in a very knowing, confidential and 
whimsical way, washing his hands, bobbing his head, and 
blinking his eyes — “pardon me, but the light happens to 
be a particular dodge of mine. It doesn’t light the window 
too much! You see, it induces people to come into the 
shop to see what they’re buying, and it sends them out 
again without knowing what they have bought ! ” 

Girshel laughed mirthfully. He took the old shopkeeper’s 
jest in earnest, and applauded as a piece of sharp practice 
what was really nothing more than a harmless pretense 
at knowingness on the part of a transparently honest and 
simple old man. 

“ Well ’’—looking round again— “ I won’t keep you. 
Just thought I’d like to see the home of the great man, and 
shake hands with his dad and his mum. Most interesting, 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


125 

I’m sure. Here was born, and here was reared, the future 
Prime Minister of England. Wonderful! I’ll put a tablet 
over the door for you. Later on we’ll stick his bust in a 
niche, with plenty of gas to show it up at night. Well, 
good-by to you.” 

“ I’ve got upstairs,” announced old Mrs. Sangster very 
solemnly, “ the bed he was born on, the first robe as ever 
he wore, the cradle he laid in, and some of his small 
clothes.” 

“ You don’t say so! ” 

“ Would you like to see them ? ” 

“ Not this evening, ma’am, thanks all the same — another 
time. Most interesting, I’m sure — destined one day to 
figure either in Westminster Abbey or Madame Tussaud’s. 
Certainly ! ” Then with a wink, “ See he don’t eat too big 
a tea, and spoil his speech to-night! No, I won’t stay. 
Good-by to you — good-by ! ” 

“ That’s a card ! ” laughed old Mr. Sangster, when the 
door was shut. “ Oh, I like him ! He’s a real card. Sharp 
as a pin. What is he, lad?” 

“ Well, he’s a Jew, isn’t he?” said old Mrs. Sangster. “ I 
could see that in a moment. Nasty little impertinent crea- 
ture, I call him ! Talking about my stays before gentlemen, 
and him a perfect stranger ! I never did in all my life ! But 
come along. I had a beautiful tea all ready for you twenty 
minutes ago. I hope it isn’t spoilt, that’s all. You said 
half-past four. We thought it was early, but the both of 
you said it. Come along in.” 

When they had entered the parlor and shut the door, 
and while old Mrs. Sangster was bringing the kettle from 
the hob, Maurice said to his father: “You think I’ve 
forgotten, dad! I know you do. Mother thinks so, too. 
You both think I’ve forgotten.” 

“Forgotten what, lad?” asked the old man, pretending 
not to know. 


126 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ I said you wouldn’t,” quoth old Mrs. Sangster, pouring 
boiling water into the teapot. 

“ Well, now, before we sit down,” said Maurice, “ I’ll 
prove to you that I haven’t forgotten. First, I arranged 
three weeks ago that I should be in Derby on this very 
day. Second, I arranged that a carriage should come here 
at a quarter to eight on purpose to carry you both to my 
meeting. Third, I arranged that the three best seats in the 
front row should be reserved for you two and for Phoebe. 
But wait — I haven’t done yet. I’m going to prove to you, 
not only that I know it’s your birthday, but that I know 
the exact number of years the world has been the better for 
your presence in it ! ” 

“ Now, do sit down,” cried old Mrs. Sangster. “ Make 
your speech afterwards. The hot buttered toast has been 
standing twenty minutes and more.” 

“ Let it wait two minutes longer, mum ! ” cried Maurice, 
and produced from the pocket of his overcoat a heavy 
canvas bag tied at the neck with pink tape. 

He pushed a plate out of his way, loosened the tape, 
causing a pleasant clinking sound to issue from the interior 
of the bag, and then emptied the contents on to the white 
table-cloth. 

“ Goodness to gracious!” ejaculated old Mrs. Sangster. 

“ Lord have mercy on us ! ” cried old Mr. Sangster very 
piously. 

“ Count them ! ” cried Maurice. “ Count them ! ” 

“ Now, for pity’s sake,” said the old lady, in a high 
state of apprehension, glancing in perfect terror towards 
the glass-paneled door, “ hide them away, do ! Hide them ! 
You never know who’ll come into the shop. It’s tempting 
Providence. Hide them away, I tell you ! ” 

“ Lord ! ” said old Mr. Sangster ; “ I can’t see them 
clearly, and I feel all of a twitter. You count ’em. God 
bless my soul ! I never saw such a sight in my born days ! ” 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


127 

He turned away from the table, put his two hands on 
Phoebe’s shoulders, drew her to him very gently, and laid 
his head against her cheek. 

“ I’m so glad it has made you happy,” she said, kissing 
him and fondling him. 

Into her ear he whispered cunningly : “ Are you sure 

he can afford it? Why, it’s a fortune! Won’t it pinch 
him ? You’ve got children, mind you ! ” 

Maurice dragged at his arm. “ Come, dad, I insist that 
you count them. Sit down to the table, quick. Mum’s 
getting impatient.” 

“ Ah, there’s that hot buttered toast of hers ; we mustn’t 
forget that ! ” laughed the old man, and he sat down with 
alacrity. “ My blessed word ! ” he exclaimed ; “ a heap 
of gold sovereigns, all new, every one of them ! Why, it’s 
like a miracle ! ” 

“ I wish you’d put them away,” snapped the old lady. 
“ I’m not thinking of the buttered toast now ; I’m thinking 
of murderers and thieves.” She turned to Phoebe and 
related terrible incidents of till robberies and garrottings 
and ruffianism of the worst order. “ It’s not safe to live 
here, now that the children have left us,” she said. “ I tell 
you that sometimes when the shop-bell rings of a dark night, 
I feel as if my heart would jump out of my mouth. It’s 
awful, it’s terrible, sitting here waiting while your dad-in- 
law goes to see who it is. I’m sure it’s taking years off 
my life ! ” She threw up her hands and turned up her 
eyes. “ But, my dear, there’s another matter. What about 
this grand meeting to-night? You don’t want to go with 
us, I’m sure. We haven’t got the clothes for it. You see, 
we’re very old, quiet people, and we don’t go anywhere ex- 
cept to chapel of a Sabbath, and perhaps once a week to 
prayer-meeting.” 

“ Why, I’m longing, just longing to sit with you ! ” said 
Phoebe, embracing her again. “ You’re his mother! Think 


128 


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how proud I shall be sitting next to his mother! I shall 
hold your hand all the time ! ” 

“You mean that? You’re certain of it? Mind, I 
shouldn’t be offended. I know that in the Lord’s sight we’re 
all equal, but while we’re on the earth, left to ourselves, as 
you might say, dress can’t be put on one side. Dad has 
got a better coat upstairs, and his Sunday hat when I’ve 
put the iron over it will look as good as any ; but, my dear, 
I’ve got nothing better than a three years old black alpaca, 
trimmed with silk insertion, and my bonnet’s more than a 
year old, and my mantle is very shabby now, with some 
of the jet missing ” 

“ How many are there ? ” demanded Maurice. 

“ Sixty-seven, lad. I make it so. Sixty-seven.” 

“ And how old are you, dad? ” 

“ The Lord bless my soul, sixty-seven this very day ! ” 

“ One for every year,” laughed Maurice, clapping his 
father on the back. “ Look, mum, one for every year of 
his dear old life! Doesn’t that prove I knew it was his 
birthday before I came? Put them away, dad; into the bag 
with them, and then let’s get to work at mum’s buttered 
toast.” 

When the old man had put the sovereigns back into the 
bag, he got slowly up from his chair, weighing the bag in 
his right hand, solemnly and gravely, tears in his eyes, 
and went first to Phoebe, kissing her on both cheeks, then 
to Maurice, kissing his forehead, and then to his wife, 
thrusting the bag into her hands — all without a word. Then 
he walked to the little glass-paneled door, opened it, and 
passed into the shop. 

“ Ask a blessing, lad,” said old Mrs. Sangster, “ He’ll be 
back in a moment or two. I haven’t seen him taken like 
that for years.” 

They sat down and began to eat. 

In a few minutes the door opened again, and the old man 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


129 


entered, smiling and awkward. “ How’s the hot buttered 
toast, Phoebe? How is it? Oh, you should have heard 
her carrying on about that old buttered toast of hers be- 
fore you came ! ” He sat down, lifted his cup, spilling 
some of his tea, his hand was shaking so, and drank noisily, 
a tear escaping from the rim of his spectacles and sliding 
into the cup. 

Maurice began to hold forth. His pale face was flushed 
and his dark eyes were bright, as though the heat of the 
little room had boiled him into a fever. Oh, but how he 
loved that room — the wool mats, the antimacassars, the 
polished furniture, the stuffiness, the familiar smells! He 
said to them : “ When the door opened, and I heard the 

bell ring, why, I could have burst into tears! What mem- 
ories it woke in my heart! Yes, that old bell on the door! 
Why didn’t Poe put the bell of the little shop into his 
poem? Think of them, all over the world, tinkling and 
jangling, letting in the wind with a rush, the rain with a 
swish, and bringing custom and hope to the old people in 
the little parlor at the back! Sometimes they ring gently, 
nervously, half afraid of what’s coming, and a little maid 
creeps in, asking for change, or an old woman who can’t 
see the step clearly, and pulls angrily at her dog by its 
string. Isn’t that so, dad ? Sometimes they ring cheerfully 
and heartily, and a good, honest body enters, prepared to 
pay cash and carry off what she buys — yes, and to stop for 
a few minutes of pleasant chat. And sometimes they ring 
loudly and alarmingly — someone in a hurry for something 
you haven’t got, or a neighbor with bad news, or the post- 
man with letters from the scattered children, the children 
who hear in their dreams all over the world the tinkle of the 
little bell. Isn’t that true, dad? You tell us, you two, tell 
Phoebe and me what the bell means to you — its different 
sounds, changing with the seasons of the year — and what 
hopes it creates in your hearts. Why, you could write a 


130 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


book about it! Write a book, dad, about the history of 
your shop-bell ! I remember it excited me on summer nights, 
and terrified me on winter nights. I remember, too, how I 
used to lie in bed telling myself stories in which the bell 
played a part. It used to ring splendidly in my stories, 
far finer than the bell of the muffin-man; and a tall, hand- 
some stranger used to enter, dressed in superbest manner — 
Russian sables, a squash hat, and white kid gloves — and 
he used to ask if a boy named Maurice Sangster happened 
by any chance to live there; and in another two minutes — 
what do you think? — why, I had succeeded to a million of 
money, was giving orders for a castle, and a yacht, and 
no end of horses, and no end of carriages, and I was 
carrying you all off, the whole lot of you, to see the wide 
world. My word, how I dreamed ! ” 

Phoebe, leaning across the table, said softly: “You 
won’t excite yourself, Maurice dear, will you? Remember 
you’ve got this big speech to make to-night.” 

“ Good girl ! ” cried old Mr. Sangster. “ That’s how it 
should be — the wife looking after the husband, and seeing 
that he behaves reasonably. Maurice, the shrimps are 
looking at you.” 

“ I think he’s terribly thin,” pursued old Mrs. Sangster. 
“ I know he works hard, and must have a deal to worry 
him. Still, for all that, he oughtn’t to look so peaky. I’m 
sure he oughtn’t. He never used to look like it, anyway. 
He was a hearty eater and enjoyed his food. He was 
always thin, and his complexion was never anything but 
pale; still, nobody would have called him delicate in those 
days — nobody!” Then she turned to Phoebe, and said: 
“Why don’t you make him shave off that beard and 
mustache? I liked him best when he hadn’t got anything 
on his face.” 

Just at this moment the bell rang in the shop. 

“ Goodness ! ” cried old Mrs. Sangster, sitting back sud- 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


131 

denly, pressing her left hand to her heart, and staring 
fearfully towards the door. 

“ All right, old lady, nobody isn’t going to knock me on 
the head ! ” laughed the shopkeeper, getting up. He bowed 
to Phoebe, and said: “You’ll excuse me, my dear, won’t 
you? A business appointment! The demands of com- 
merce. You understand?” 

The customer banged on the counter. 

“There, you feel safe now, don’t you?” laughed the old 
fellow, winking at his wife. “ It’s no murderer this time, 
nor yet a shop-lifter. Perhaps it’s Lord Rothschild come 
to buy the Times. You’ve heard that joke, Maurice, haven’t 
you? Very good — very good indeed!” 

He was absent for a long time. While he was away old 
Mrs. Sangster rose repeatedly and looked over the curtain 
of the parlor door. “ It’s a lady,” she said, on the first 
occasion. “ Still, you never know in these days.” 

Maurice talked of old times, and told Phoebe many a 
story of his childhood, suggested by the furniture. 

When the newsagent returned, he was holding his watch 
in his left hand. “Eight minutes,” he said. “Yes, eight 
minutes exactly — that’s how long it took us to suit her. 
And here’s the result.” He opened his right hand and 
exposed two coppers in the palm. “Notepaper!” he said. 
“ A tuppenny packet of notepaper ! No envelopes ; she 
had some at home — half a packet or more. It had to be 
gray. Oh, very particular about that! Not too green; a 
little green, but not too much of it, and just a soft — oh, 
the very softest touch of blue in it! I think she must be 
corresponding through a matrimonial office with an eligible 
gent of middle-life and domestic habits.” 

“ Ah ! what do you think of these new-fangled matri- 
monial agencies, lad?” demanded old Mrs. Sangster, with 
asperity. “ Why don’t you have them put down by Parlia- 
ment, the wicked, blasphemous things! As if the Lord 


132 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


intended His creatures to advertise themselves into holy 
wedlock ! What sort of children are going to come out of 
marriages like that ? ” 

“ But what’s tuppence/’ demanded old Sangster, “ when 
I’ve got a fortune of sixty-seven brand-new sovereigns in 
the cupboard ? Old lady, do you know what I mean to do ? 
Why, the first fine Bank Holiday that comes along, I’m 
going to take you to Dovedale.” 

“ Oh, I’m too old for a journey like that!” said Mrs. 
Sangster. 

So they chatted and laughed, and ate the fine tea till it 
was nothing but a wreck; and then old Mr. Sangster re- 
turned thanks, and Phoebe and the old lady cleared away 
and did the washing-up together in a little scullery at the 
back, while father and son sat together in front of the fire. 

Maurice said to him, in a low voice full of affection: 
“You didn’t see me, but I passed this shop- window three 
or four times this afternoon.” 

“You did? Never! Why, what do you mean, lad?” 

“ We arrived before noon,” answered Maurice. “ I 
arranged it on purpose. I wanted to be alone. I wanted 
to see the old place quite by myself. I left Phoebe with 
Girshel at the hotel, and started out directly after luncheon. 
What a day I’ve had ! I’ve been all over the old ground — 
over every bit of it. I walked round the school, went to 
the chapel, passed the houses of my friends, paid a visit 
to the old sweet-and-toy shop at the corner, found my 
way through courts and alleys without a single mistake, 
and got as far as the cemetery. Do you remember my little 
school-friend, Willie Trenchard? Well, I went to see his 
grave.” His eyes shone and his voice shook. He was 
feeling the drama of his life, deeply and sharply. “ I stood 
over it till I was a boy again,” he said quietly. “ And then 
it came to me, dear Lord — but it was as real as anything 
in the world — that one day I shall be lying cold and rigid, 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


133 


that someone will dig a hole in the ground for me ” — he 
smote his breast — “ that I shall be let down into the dark- 
ness, and that earth will be thrown on top of me till I am 
pressed deep down out of sight. I thought to myself : 
‘ Before that happens, the Lord helping me, I’ll do some- 
thing to make the world a better place ! ’ Dad, have you 
ever felt like that? I thought of the men who die bad, 
who are laid in the grave after long lives of selfish beastli- 
ness and sin; I thought of their souls rising on the Last 
Day to confront the Judge of all men ! How can men live 
like that? Dad, do you know that Parliament is made up 
of libertines, rascals, and humbugs? It’s true; on my 
soul it’s true. You should see them in the lobby, in the 
smoking-room, on the terrace! You can count the men 
on the fingers of one hand who really know how the poor 
suffer, and who really want to alter the conditions of life 
which produce misery, sickness, crime, poverty, and igno- 
rance. Wait till you hear me to-night ! I’ve improved my 
speech by my walk this afternoon. I recalled my whole 
childhood ; I realized the sufferings of the poor people who 
surrounded me then; I saw how wickedly and cruelly the 
laws of this country had oppressed them. I vowed myself 
afresh to God’s service.” 

He was interrupted by the shop-bell. He sank back 
into his chair, breathing rather hard, and covered his face 
with his hands, thinking of life and death, God, the soul, 
and the speech he was to make that night. 

As he sat waiting for his father, he looked round about 
him at the little parlor, remembering vividly incidents of his 
childhood which had almost faded from his mind. He 
touched things. He told himself that he could very easily 
cry. He wanted someone to come and hear him talk. 

He could understand now the courage and the self- 
sacrifice of his parents ; how they had toiled from morning 
to night that the children might have clothes and food! 


134 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


What infinite pains they had taken to bring the children 
up in that wholesome fear of the Lord which saves young 
souls from perilous sins ! And now they were alone in the 
little old shop, these two parents, these two very old poor 
people, just guarding an empty nest. 

The door opened quietly, and old Mr. Sangster slipped 
mysteriously into the parlor, closing the door behind him 
with an air of secrecy. 

“ It’s rather awkward, Maurice lad,” he whispered, com- 
ing to his son’s side, and bending down to his ear. “ We’ve 
got here in Derby one of those regular Romanizing priests ; 
goes about in a long gown and a queer cap all corners ; he’s 
outside now, in the shop; says he has only just heard that 
I am the father of Mr. Maurice Sangster, and wants to 
know whether I can get him into the meeting; says he’ll 
be engaged till the last moment, and fears that he might not 
be able to get a seat. Now, what am I to say, lad? I don’t 
want to insult the man.” 

Maurice produced a card from his pocket. ‘‘What’s his 
name?” he asked. 

“ Father Something, but I really forget. Shall I ask 
him?” 

“ No; it doesn’t matter.” 

He wrote on the card : “ Admit bearer to platform,” and 
gave it to his father. “ Don’t be long,” he said, “ I like 
to sit with you, here by the old fire.” 


IV 

Some people think that to the end of his life Maurice 
never made a better speech than he made that night at 
Derby. It was, in any case, the speech that determined 
his career. Hitherto the London newspapers had either 
ignored him or treated him to a paragraphic mutilation. 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


i35 


But the speech was remarkable enough to impress nearly 
all the principal editors; it was printed with astonishing 
fullness. Some of the more daring newspapers ventured 
a careful comment in leading articles. Afterward, word 
for word, it was published by the London Herald as a 
pamphlet. Radicalism seemed to be getting on its feet. 

Old Sangster was right when he turned to Phoebe at 
the end and said : “ I feel as if I’d been in chapel, listening 
to a sermon — but the very best sermon I ever heard.” For 
in this speech Maurice made no attack upon the Government, 
indulged in no violent criticism of the Opposition, scarcely, 
indeed, mentioned the word “ politics.” He spoke as a poor 
man to poor men, as one who had been drowning with them 
in deep waters, but now had lifted his head above the waves 
and had discerned across the darkness and tempest the 
sunlit hills of a better world. When he mentioned politi- 
cians, it was to speak of them with something almost like 
Christian charity, as of men who did not know, who could 
not understand, who had never experienced the griefs of the 
multitude. Not by fighting would come the great victory 
desired by all good men, but by enlightened sympathy; 
there can be no Millennium, he said, till the fellowship of 
humanity is the wish of the world. 

While the audience were cheering at the end of the 
speech — which had disappointed those who came to shout 
“ Give it ’em ! ” and taken the wind out of the sails of those 
who came to interrupt and heckle — old Mr. Sangster leaned 
his lips to the ear of old Mrs. Sangster, who was sitting 
stiff and forward, her spectacles shining in the gaslight, 
her matronly bosom, protected by the five and elevenpence 
halfpenny, bursting with pride, and said to her : “ You see 
these young fellows just in front of us, writing as if their 
lives depended on it? They’re sending your son’s speech 
over the telegraph wire to every city of any consequence 
in the whole world. You and your old buttered toast ! ” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


136 

“ I believe you’re right, Peter,” she rejoined, “ though 
you’re always wrong as a rule.” 

“What do you mean? Right about what?” 

“ Making him the Prime Minister. Lord send that we 
live to see the day ! ” 

The old couple waited with Phoebe while the great audi- 
ence was dispersing. They stood by their seats, watching 
the people on the platform who crowded round Maurice to 
shake his hand and congratulate him. They missed noth- 
ing, these two old people. They talked about it for months 
afterwards. He was the center of the world. 

“ Oh dear, look ! ” said old Mrs. Sangster, bridling up. 
“ There’s that nasty little fat-nosed creature of a Jew up 
there. I hope he won’t say anything to any of the gentle 
people about my stays, the vulgar little creature! nor yet 
come down here making any of his indecent remarks. I 
ought to have smacked his face for him in the shop this 
afternoon. Taking liberties like that ! ” 

She turned to Phoebe and asked her how she could en- 
courage such a hideous little sinner, and why Maurice took 
up with such a little brat. 

Old Mr. Sangster was saying to himself : 

“ They all want to know him. They all want to shake 
his hand. It’s enough to turn a man’s head — some of the 
biggest men in the town ! ” 

Maurice at last broke free from his admirers, but not 
before many of the gas-jets had been lowered by a non- 
political porter anxious to go home and get to bed. He 
strode away to the back of the platform. In the shadow 
close to the stairs which led below, someone stood waiting. 
Maurice glanced up rather impatiently, and was about to 
push past when the man leaned forward, and said : 

“ I should like to thank you for so kindly giving me your 
card this afternoon — and for your speech.” 

The face of the man was so interesting, his smile was so 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


137 


pleasant, his voice was so exceedingly good-natured and 
attractive, that Maurice stopped. Before a speech he was 
always excitable and elated ; afterwards, cold, distant, silent, 
and reserved. 

“ I enjoyed your speech so much,” said the priest. “ I 
couldn’t see you, for I was here at the back, but I could 
watch the audience, and I could hear every word you said.” 

“You sympathize with our ideas?” Maurice asked. 

“ Very much.” 

“ As a rule one associates the parsons ” 

“ Oh, but you mustn’t do that. We are waking up, 
too.” 

“You are not opposed to disestablishment?” 

“Not in the least; I should welcome it.” 

“ But disendowment ? ” 

“ Have you gone into that question yourself ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ It’s rather a difficult one. But I mustn’t keep you.” 
He put out his hand. “ Many thanks indeed. Please tell 
your father how much I enjoyed the speech, what pleasure 
it gave me to watch his enthusiasm, and how very much 
indebted I feel myself to him. Good-by. Perhaps we 
shall meet again.” 

Maurice was finding his way from the lower regions to 
the hall, when one of the great men of Derby, overtaking 
him, said: 

“I saw you talking to. Father Prague; remarkable man, 
that.” 

Maurice stopped. “Father Prague?” he questioned. 
“ You don’t mean to tell me that that was Father Prague? ” 

“ What, didn’t you know? ” laughed the bigwig. “ Well, 
that’s curious.” 

“ I hadn’t the least idea who he was.” 

“ He’d be sure not to tell you,” said the other. “ The 
most modest, simple fellow living. But he’s corrupting the 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


138 

place. An out-and-out Romanizer. Confessional, mass- 
books for children, statue of the Virgin Mary, incense — the 
whole thing.” 

When Maurice came to his parents, he said to his father : 

“Why didn’t you tell me the priest was Father Prague? 
Don’t you know he’s one of the greatest men living, close 
personal friend of the Prime Minister ” 

“ I know he’s a rascal, a thorough rascal ! ” interrupted 
old Mr. Sangster. “ They call him the * Kidnapper,’ and 
he deserves it. Don’t tell your mother you’ve been speaking 
to him. She’d never enjoy a good night’s rest again. She 
thinks,” he whispered very awfully, his whiskers brushing 
Maurice’s cheek, “ that he is the Devil himself ! ” 

What was Phoebe doing all this time ? She was standing 
behind her mother-in-law in the darkened hall, listening 
very politely to the old lady’s remarks, trying very hard 
to keep a look of interest in her eyes, struggling inwardly 
to suppress yawn after yawn. Poor little provincial, subur- 
ban Phoebe! Oh, how tired she was! Tired of political 
meetings, tired of railway traveling, tired of hotels. And 
how she longed to be at home with her babies! Nothing 
in the whole world compared with those delightful little 
beings ; to busy herself about them, to play with them, to 
go shopping for them, to discuss with the nurse this and 
that concerning them, and to watch the increasing dawn 
of their intelligences — teaching them the names of things, 
encouraging them to be curious, interested, and discriminat- 
ing; to hear their little voices calling for her from the 
nursery landing, to hear them shaking the gate at the stair- 
head as she came to them ; to feel their little cheeks pressed 
against her face when they greeted her, to sit with them by 
the nursery fire telling stories at night, to wake in the 
morning with the thought that they were coming down the 
corridor to play in her bed with her — these things, these 
delicious thoughts of her maternity, you may be very sure, 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


i39 


were wonderfully closer to the heart of Phoebe than the 
great speeches of her husband, the incessant toil of packing 
and unpacking their boxes, and all the seething restlessness 
of a life that was hubbub, movement, and excitement that 
led nowhere. 

They took the old people back to the little shop, and then 
drove away to the hotel. In the carriage Phoebe said to her 
husband : 

“ I hope there will be a letter for us when we get back.” 

“ A letter ! ” he exclaimed, coming out of his abstraction. 
“ What do you mean, dear? A letter from whom? ” 

“ From nurse.” 

“ Oh, to be sure ! ” 

“I’m rather anxious now that the weather is so much 
colder.” 

“ They’ll be all right. Won’t it be jolly to see them 
again ? ” 

“ I was going to ask you, When do you think we shall 
be going back?” 

He considered for a long time. 

“ I should say — but it’s difficult to be certain — in about 
two weeks’ time. I’m in Girshel’s hands. He’s arranging 
three or four extra meetings as we go along ! ” 

“Your mother doesn’t like him.” 

“ He’s a clever little creature, all the same.” 

When they got back to the hotel they found a letter from 
the nurse, and Phoebe sat down very happily in the lounge, 
taking off her gloves and putting back her veil, to read the 
news to her husband while he drank a large tumbler of 
egg-and-milk. 

She had got but half-way through the letter when Girshel 
came in, grinning, energetic, very much awake, and ready 
to sit up to any hour in the morning. He was stamping 
his feet, and rubbing his hands together, for it was bitterly 
cold. He called a waiter and ordered a brandy-and-soda 


140 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


and sandwiches. Then he sat down next to Maurice, put 
his hand on the orator’s arm, and said to him : 

“ The worst speech you ever made in your life ! ” 

Maurice, with the tumbler of egg-and-milk in his hand, 
turned away from Phoebe, looked at Girshel, and asked 
what he meant by that. Perhaps he was more interested in 
Girshel’s remark than in the nurse’s letter. 

“ There was no mutiny in it, no rebellion, no fight,” 
answered the Jew. “ It was the speech of a young curate 
dreaming of — what do they call it? — why, the Second 
Coming. Man alive, you don’t suppose democracy wants 
stuff like that? You don’t suppose revolution is going to 
come from tracts and sermons? What was the matter 
with you ? ” 

Phoebe got up from her chair, folding the letter, and 
said that she would go to her room. 

“ All right, dear,” said Maurice, not getting up ; “ I 
shan’t be long.” 

Girshel raised his head, looked at her with a grin, and, 
still sitting, but just touching the brim of his cap for polite- 
ness’ sake, said to her: 

“ I’ll do the curtain lecture to-night, Mrs. Sangster. You 
can go to sleep with an easy conscience. I’ll give the 
rascal what for! Good-night to you. Pleasant dreams. 
Heard from the kiddies? Ah, I thought so. How are 
they? That’s all right, then. Good-night.” And before 
she had quite turned away, he was leaning forward to 
Maurice. 

“ I’ve arranged for you to address the Liberal Working 
Men’s Club to-morrow night,” he said. “ Eight o’clock 
sharp. We can catch the ten-thirty p.m. for Nottingham 
afterwards; plenty of time. You’ve got to undo the bad 
effect of to-night. Derby wants a flarer. You can’t go 
away leaving the impression that Radicalism is milk and 
water, specially suitable for Sunday-school teachers, the 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


141 

Band of Hope, and the Young Men’s Christian Associa- 
tion.” 

Maurice said: 

“ I’ve struck a better line than ever before. It comes 
new to you, and you don’t see where it will lead. But it’s 
a straight line, and it will take us where we want to be.” 

“ Humbug ! ” said Girshel. “ Humbug ! ” he repeated. 
“ That won’t wash at all.” 

And he held forth for a considerable time on the right 
line for Maurice to follow, concluding by clicking his 
fingers and whistling for the waiter, a summons greatly 
resented by that dignified person, and causing considerable 
annoyance to the other people in the lounge. 

“ Brandy-and-soda,” he said sharply, and drew out his 
cigar-case. 

Maurice was tired, and he disliked the Jew’s dictatorship. 

“ I think you had better make the speech to the working 
men yourself,” he answered, stretching his legs. “ I’ve 
finished, as far as Derby is concerned.” 

“ Nonsense ! ” said Girshel, biting off the end of his cigar, 
and spitting it on to the carpet. He struck a match. Laugh- 
ing in a gurgling way, and holding the match downwards, 
he demanded : 

“ Do you think I keep a dog to bark myself ? ” 

Then he lighted the cigar. 

“ I don’t understand that remark,” said Maurice. 

“ Don’t you, though ? ” 

“ If you think I’m your mouthpiece, without a soul of 
my own,” said Maurice haughtily, “ you’re making a very 
great mistake.” 

“ Not a doubt of it,” grinned Girshel ; “ but I don’t. I 
regard myself as Apollo, and you as the poet I’ve taken up 
as a hobby. I’m inspiring you. I give you inspiration. And 
I find the cash. That’s our relation. Come, now, isn’t it 
true? Where would you be if it wasn’t for me? Who 


142 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


planned the present campaign? Who financed it? Who’s 
running it? Why, I’m giving you the chance of your life- 
time!” 

“ I can’t understand you,” said Maurice, crossing his 
legs, and regarding the little man with interest. “ What 
are you really aiming at? You don’t believe in God; you 
laugh at morality; you make fun of religion, and yet you 
want to do things, want to alter life, and to improve the 
lot of the poor. Why?” 

“ Look here, Maurice, old boy, you don’t believe in God 
either. You think you do, but you don’t. I’ll tell you 
what your religion is. You believe that something or other 
that somebody or other told you about a God when you 
were a boy may possibly be true, and because you’re half 
afraid that this God in whom you half believe may punish 
you if you don’t try to do what you imagine He wants you 
to do, you go to chapel, and you say your prayers, and you 
keep the five or six of the ten commandments that come 
easiest to you.” 

“ The question is not my faith, but yours,” said Maurice. 

Girshel grinned from ear to ear. Nothing delighted him 
more than to be the center of interest. 

“ Why do I want to improve life? ” he asked, taking his 
glass from the table, shaking up its contents with a jerk, 
and half raising it to his lips. “ Because it’s a big job, 
and my mind is an active one.” 

He drank noisily, set down the glass with a bang, and 
threw himself back in his chair. 

" I’m a man of business, Maurice. I use my senses 
where they can be useful, and I don’t use them where they 
can’t amuse me. The poor people? Well, I’m sorry for 
them in a general way; but they don’t keep me from my 
sleep. I’m not thin because I want to make them fat! 
No; none of that rot — like your speech to-night. I want 
to use democracy to execute my ideas. And I mean that 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


143 


they shall. Pah! it’s easy enough. It’s like trade — all 
advertisement and illumination. Plenty of limelight, plenty 
of repetition, and the thing’s done. Keep telling these fools 
that they aren’t as rich as the rich, and they’ll get angry, 
they’ll begin to stir, and then they’ll say, ‘ How’s that, 
then ? ’ And after that, why, it’s as easy as falling off a 
log.” 

“ I see,” said Maurice ; “ you make a hobby of me be- 
cause I’m useful to this other hobby of yours.” 

Girshel leaned forward, struck him on the arm, and, 
with his monkey face almost against Maurice’s, said cheer- 
fully : 

“ Look here, I’m a man who takes up politics as another 
man takes up coins, or postage stamps, or architecture. 
That’s all there is in it. I’m interested; the thing amuses 
me; I want to see my own ideas at work. What posterity 
may say of me I don’t care a brass farthing. Whether I’m 
buried in Westminster Abbey or in Wormwood Scrubbs 
doesn’t matter to me a toss. I’m not out for glory. I’m 
not out for fame. And I know very well that when I die, 
it will be snuff — like a candle ! ” 

He opened his huge mouth to its very widest, showing 
all his teeth, and laughed till he cried. 

“That’s what it means to me! See? I’m no humbug, 
and I’m no demagogue. I can’t get drunk on brandy-and- 
soda, and certainly I can’t get drunk on words. It takes 
a teetotaler to do that.” He laughed again. “ Put that 
in your pipe and smoke it ! ” he said, hitting Maurice in 
the chest; and then, throwing himself back in his chair, he 
laughed again. 

“ As for me,” said Maurice, seriously and quietly, “ the 
more I see of the people in their homes, and the more I 
make a study of their actual lives, the more determined I 
am to sacrifice my whole life for their welfare.” 

“ And so you shall, dear boy, so you shall ; only it shall 


144 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


be in my Way,” rejoined Girshel. “ Leave yourself in my 
hands. You do the talking, and I’ll pull the strings. We’re 
partners; and it pays you — pays you well. You know it 
does, you rogue, you ! ” 

Before Maurice went up to bed it was agreed that he 
should speak to the working men on the following evening. 


V 

Lord Ravenstruther, chief Whip of the Liberal Party, 
quite agreed with the Prime Minister and one or two other 
Cabinet Ministers who had written to him on the subject, 
that this thing had got to be stopped. Further, he enter- 
tained in his mind not the smallest misgiving that he was 
the very man to stop it. 

He sent Maurice a line, marked “ Private and Confiden- 
tial,” asking him to call. This brief line of the Chief 
Whip was one of those ingenious missives which leave the 
recipients in a painful state of uncertainty as to whether 
the summons is friendly and flattering or hostile and cross. 
Maurice read the note half a dozen times. He concluded 
that he was in for a wigging. 

On paper Ravenstruther was an ideal and a romantic 
person. He was the son of the richest Marquis in Scot- 
land, and his mother, a great favorite of the Queen, had 
been one of the three beautiful daughters of the famous 
Duchess of Wiltshire. He went to Eton and to Oxford. 
He passed from Sandhurst to the Life Guards. From 
the Life Guards he moved to the House of Commons. And 
he married Miss Goggenheimer. 

Whether it was from the strain of observing an appear- 
ance of the blandest innocence during his adventurous 
boyhood, or the strain during his sojourn with the House- 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


i45 


hold Brigade of presenting a military appearance, or the 
strain when he entered the House of Commons of main- 
taining a political appearance, whether it was from one or 
all three of these considerable successive strains laid upon 
his mental organization, certain it is that Lord Raven- 
struther at thirty-three presented no other appearance to 
mankind than that of a rather bucolic and slightly idiotic 
gentleman who, having seen life on a very large scale, will 
cheerfully be hanged if he knows what to make of it. 

His thick red hair, thoroughly oiled, parted in the middle, 
and combed backwards, gave a pull to his forehead which 
seemed to jerk up his eyebrows and keep them perpetually 
out of their official resting-place; his round, staring eyes 
looked as if they were frightfully puzzled to know what 
was coming next; his solid mustache, curled upwards to 
his eyes, might have survived a soldier-like impressiveness 
if his chin had not glided away at quite so sharp an angle 
of mental deficiency ; his nose had an inquiring turn which 
had never come to anything; his shoulders were just suf- 
ficient, but only just sufficient, to carry his coat; his chest 
was as flat as a postcard. 

But he was tall, active, well-groomed, and had at least 
a dozen manners. His schoolfellows could never deter- 
mine whether he was the most devil-may-care or the most 
pious of their contemporaries; his brother officers never 
knew whether he was a really very clever fellow or the 
most consummate ass that ever wore breast-plate and top- 
boots; and it was not until he had been in the House of 
Commons for three years that the Prime Minister could 
be persuaded, even by the most influential and charming 
people of the great world, to believe that Ravenstruther 
would make a Whip. 

The Prime Minister was still doubtful on this point when 
he sent the note which caused Ravenstruther to drop his 
ambiguous line to Maurice. However, Ravenstruther had 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


146 

excellent underlings; and he could be tactful on occasions, 
and he gave very impressive dinner-parties, and the smaller 
fry of the party rather liked to be seen talking to him ; and, 
besides, in those days the Patronage Secretary was not 
called upon to display the various talents of a business 
man, a general, a financier, and a Jesuit. All that was re- 
quired of him was charm. 

Maurice was shown into the library of as fine a house 
as you will find in Belgravia, by a servant whose dark 
livery and silver buttons prepared the mind for rather 
more dignity in the master than most people found there. 
He entered this impressive room just as Lord Raven- 
struther was dismissing a private secretary with a pile 
of documents, and was rising from a writing-table in the 
window, shaking out his trousers and pulling down his 
cuffs. 

Ravenstruther, all in black with a large pink carnation 
in his buttonhole, and a very big pearl in his cravat, did 
not hasten to greet his visitor. He did not even look at 
him. He came forward, kicking out his legs to get the 
troublesome trousers down into straight lines (they had 
been pulled half-way up his thin shanks as he sat writing), 
and calling out a final instruction to the secretary at the 
door. But he did a very flattering thing. He retained 
Maurice’s hand in his grasp, placed the fingers of his 
other hand on Maurice’s shoulder, and kept him in this 
silent greeting, as though he feared to lose him and was 
longing to speak to him, while he continued his instruc- 
tion to the secretary. 

Then he looked at Maurice, smiled in the most friendly 
manner, and with an elaborate courtesy presented him to the 
largest arm-chair in the room. 

“ My dear Sangster,” he began, confidentially and half- 
chaffingly, the tone so different from that to which the 
gentlemanly young secretary had been treated, “ what 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


147 


have you been up to in the North and the Midlands? ” He 
opened an exceedingly handsome gold box, and offered 
cigarettes to his guest. “ I hear you’ve been setting the 
whole party by the ears — what?” He stood before the 
fireplace, wide-legged, his coat-tails under his arm. “ Fel- 
lows keep writing to me, saying that I must run a candidate 
against you at Bursby. Absurd ! I tell ’em, we don’t want 
to let the other chaps in with a three-cornered contest. 
Nonsense ! ” He struck a match. “ Sure you won’t smoke? 
Pestering me they are,” he continued, frowning as he 
lighted the cigarette, “ like the very devil — what ? But to tell 
you the honest truth,” — as he turned to throw the match in 
the fire — “ I’ve been so infernally busy these last two months 
that I haven’t had time to look at the papers. I really 
don’t know what you’ve been saying. That’s why I wrote 
to you, my dear fellow — what? I thought you wouldn’t 
mind telling me. Have you been very indiscreet? Have 
you been playing Old Harry — what ? ” He was swinging 
slowly and elegantly from side to side, letting first his left 
knee and then his right shoot forward and outwards, his 
feet far apart, his hands in his pockets, his coat-tails through 
his arms, his eyebrows raised their highest, and his red 
face wreathed in smoke. 

Maurice, with all his honesty, could not prevent himself 
from feeling both flattered by the confidential friendliness 
of his noble host, and also guilty of an ungenerous and 
disloyal fault. 

He said: “ You remember I moved the adjournment 
of the House?” 

“ Ah, yes ! But, my dear fellow, that was in a moment 
of pique.” Ravenstruther straightened himself, walked un- 
necessarily to an ash-tray, where he flicked at his cigarette, 
and then returning to the hearth, he continued: “And in 
very irritating circumstances, too — very! I said so at the 
time. We all came to feel it. The Prime Minister, you 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


148 

know, Sangster ” — this very, very, very confidentially — 
“ is a particular admirer of yours — what ? He thinks a 
good deal of you. I mean, I’m not committing an indiscre- 
tion — what ? — when I tell you that he’s watching your 
career with interest. It’s not the Cabinet, it’s the rank and 
file, the silly old josser who can’t sleep for fear of losing 
his seat, that’s giving us all the trouble — rot ! The Cabinet 
feels, and I feel, too, exactly as you do. We not only see 
that something has got to be done, but we want to do it.” 

Maurice interrupted : “ Well, all I have been saying in 
the country is simply that. I’ve been saying that something 
has got to be done.” 

Ravenstruther threw his cigarette behind him into the 
fire, and having now thoroughly toasted himself behind, 
turned round, put his hands on the mantelpiece, and pro- 
ceeded to warm the front part of him. 

“ But don’t you see, Sangster,” he said, one gaitered 
and varnished boot on the marble curb, and his head turned 
over his tall collar to regard his guest, “ that it isn’t the pur- 
port, but the tone, of what a man says that really matters 
in cases of this kind? I mean to say, the Prime Minister 
would welcome — positively welcome — any campaign for 
social reform — reasonable social reform. He’s as keen as 
I am — as keen as you are — about the matter; but what we 
all feel is this, my dear fellow — what? — that you’re putting 
off social reform — putting back the clock, as somebody said 
to me only the other day — by splitting the party and letting 
in the Tories. Campaign by all means — nothing better, 
it’s exactly what we want — so long as you don’t attack the 
Government — what? — so long as you don’t split the party. 
But for Heaven’s sake, let’s all stick together; let’s be 
loyal to each other — what ? Let’s work like one side ! ” 

Maurice said that what he had seen in the course of his 
campaign convinced him that if the Government would 
desist from foreign adventures and tinkering the Constitu- 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


149 


tion, and if it would seriously address itself to the removal 
of great social abuses which touched the homes and lives 
of poor people, the Party would simply sweep the country. 

Ravenstruther became glowingly enthusiastic. He said 
nothing would suit his book better. He spoke rather 
anxiously and seriously of the difficulty of persuading cer- 
tain rich and powerful men in the Party, but admitted that 
they would either have to yield or go ; certainly, the future 
of Liberalism was social reform. And then he suggested 
that Maurice should write him a letter stating the first two 
or three, or perhaps better still, the first one or two great 
social reforms he desired to see brought about — a letter 
that Ravenstruther could show to the Prime Minister, and 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Foreign Secretary. 
Finally he wondered whether it would not be a good thing — 
however, this he left entirely to Maurice’s own judgment — 
if Maurice wrote a letter to the London Herald expressing 
his conviction that the Government were in earnest, and 
would certainly tackle social reform in the new session. 

“ A letter like that,” he concluded, “ would please the 
Prime Minister, and allay suspicions. You could do it 
awfully well. And it would more or less tie the hands 
of the old jossers. Besides, I want — I particularly want — 
to bring you and the Prime Minister together.” 

He paused, as if he had something of extreme gravity 
to impart, and then said : “ I don’t want to see you going 
over to the Tories, Sangster; I want to see you, at the 
next shuffling of offices, in the Government. There, my 
dear fellow, I’ve shown my hand. But I know I can 
trust you not to give me away.” 

Maurice declined an invitation to luncheon. 

“You are married, aren’t you?” asked Ravenstruther, 
as they shook hands. 

“ Oh, yes ; I’ve got three children.” 

“ Lucky fellow ! ” This very sadly, with a pressure of 


150 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


the hand. Then, in the most charming manner possible, as 
they went to the door together, “ I wish you would bring 
Mrs. Sangster to dine with us one night — what? We 
should be delighted. My wife is anxious to meet you. 
Will you? Do, my dear fellow, do.” 


VI 

The bilious fog of the morning had changed color for 
the worse. It had become so entirely convinced during 
the day that the stucco fronts of Old Broad Street repre- 
sented the true and only suitable tint for London’s com- 
plexion, that by five o’clock in the evening, when old Mr. 
Champness left his office in company with Mr. Christopher 
Jiggens, it was a difficult business even for the match-sellers 
and newsboys in the gutter to decide where the atmosphere 
ended and the offices began. 

Small impression was made on this black air by the 
yellow lights of the street-lamps which had been burning 
now for thirty-six hours at a stretch, and were likely to go 
on burning, as footpads, burglars, eloping couples, and the 
gas company devoutly hoped they might, another two or 
three days at least. A severe moralist with shares in the 
Gas Company, contemplating those street-lamps, and letting 
his eyes wander to certain lemon splashes surrounded by a 
brief aura of apprehensive whiteness in the upper regions, 
very like poached eggs of an inferior quality dreaming that 
they had been hatched with wings, might perhaps have been 
troubled in his conscience as to the dividends accruing 
from such a complete failure on the part of his company 
to illuminate the City of London inside and out, according 
to contract ; he would have been less than human if he could 
have surveyed the melancholy scene without a warm and 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


151 

very friendly feeling of gratitude towards the fog which ate 
up his gas as fast as it fizzed from the burners and kept all 
the brass needles on his thousands of meters tucked away 
under basement stairs, coal cellars and broom cupboards 
throughout the metropolitan area in a continued state of 
very profitable agitation. 

Whether it was the amount of gas it consumed in this 
way, or whether it obtained its particularly suffocating 
flavor from the tons of smoke it was so industriously swal- 
lowing from the invisible chimneys overhead, certain it is 
that the fog that night had an effect upon the throats of 
sensitive people which was remarkably like strangulation. 
With the rumble of wheels, and the scraping of feet upon 
the pavements, there sounded from one end of London to 
the other the barking, coughing, choking, snorting, sneezing, 
and roaring of ladies and gentlemen at the point of suffoca- 
tion. If it had been so dark that a man could not see his 
way, he might have guided himself from collision with a 
fellow-creature simply by listening for these laryngeal fog- 
signals. As old Champness said to Jiggens, a man could 
hardly hear himself speak for the coughing of these trouble- 
some fools. But no sooner had old Champness opened 
his firm mouth to make this remark, than in oozed the 
fog, tickling his palate, coating his uvula, smothering his 
tonsils, filling his weasand, and loading his lungs, till he, 
too, started to bark like a dog, and was brought to a stand 
with one hand at his painful back, another at his bursting 
head, feeling that he must either suffocate or explode. 

Jiggens patted the old gentleman’s round back in the 
most anxious and affectionate manner conceivable, but he 
took very good care to make the remark which he con- 
sidered suitable to the occasion through closed lips. 
“ Mustn’t speak, sir,” he mumbled. “ Most unwise ; keep 
mouth shut; breathe through nose; better get cab soon 
possible; fog worse every ” A communication which 


152 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


old Champness mistook for a milder form of choking on 
the part of his faithful and devoted secretary, contracted, 
very probably, by attendance upon himself. There they 
stood, in front of the Royal Exchange, Jiggens mumbling 
through closed lips, and old Champness coughing till he 
was blue in the face, stamping his right foot, reaching 
round one of his arms to tap himself on the bottom of the 
spine, and making the most alarming noises out of a 
menagerie as he struggled to fetch his breath, with the tears 
raining down his cheeks, his bloodshot eyes staring as if 
they were looking for a soft spot to jump out upon before 
he burst, and with his mouth wide open in the fog. At 
the end of this terrible strain, and still half-choking, old 
Champness shook his head with tremendous solemnity, 
pointed doggedly forward with a bent arm, and started to 
advance. Jiggens at his side nudged him, put his mouth to 
the old gentleman’s ear, and mumbled : “ Cab ; insist ! ” 

But Champness shook his head obstinately. He intended 
to walk. 

Now Jiggens had been extremely and even painstakingly 
sympathetic with Mr. Champness ever since the dispersal 
of the family; he had walked to and fro with the old 
gentleman; had approved every sentiment he uttered — 
even when those sentiments expressed unbounded contempt 
for the Church and the Party to which in secret Mr. Jiggens 
attached his soul and his opinions; and had shown to 
the sturdy and obstinate old man, by many delicate little 
touches, how very keenly, even filially, he felt for him in 
his solitude and disappointments. But this London Particu- 
lar was really too much for Jiggens. He said to his wife 
afterwards, helping himself to a stifif glass of whisky : “ I 
saw myself, by gosh ! walking through the fog to the train 
at St. George’s Church with that dear old blighter! Not 
this nigger! Not at no price.” And he explained how 
he had done it. 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


153 


“ I let him go as far as Gracechurch Street, cursing in- 
wardly all the time; and then, nipping hold of his arm as 
I caught sight of an empty growler at the curb, I fairly 
shouted into his ear : ‘ I insist upon your driving home, sir. 
Think of Miss Champness’s anxiety. Think of your valu- 
able health/ And with that I bundled him in, shouted 
‘ Clapham ! ’ and was on the opposite seat with the door 
banged fast, before he had done choking. But the old boy 
was growling all the way, furious, and insisted upon stop- 
ping at the Swan, and walking the rest of the distance. Did 
you ever know such a pig-headed old chap? Ah, but I’m 
sorry for him, hang me if I’m not! There’s fine stuff in 
the old boy. He’s a real Englishman. He’s given me quite 
a new idea about Dissenters. If they were all like him, 
’pon me soul, I wouldn’t mind being one myself. But 
how he can mix with those Stigginses, and Pecksniffs, and 
Chadbands who come cringing and psalm-singing round to 
the office for subscriptions, dashed if I know ! ” 

When the subject of this narration got into his house, 
and found it warm, well-lighted, and as cheerful as Aunt 
Mildred could make it, he said to himself : “ He’s a very 
good fellow, is Jiggens. I rather like him for that piece of 
impudence — pushing me into the cab. It shows anxiety 
for me. It shows thoughtfulness. And he’s a fellow, too, 
who himself much prefers to walk. A nice, gentlemanly, 
pleasant, kind-hearted, unselfish fellow. Very.” 

Aunt Mildred came to the door of the drawing-room. 

“ Well, Humphry ! ” she exclaimed, “ how did you find 
your way home ? ” 

“ Why, well enough. No difficulty at all,” he replied, 
shaking himself out of his overcoat. He sat down on the 
hall-chair, and the maid, who had hurried up from below 
at the sound of the closing door, knelt down, unfastened 
his black gaiters, and unlaced his shoes. 


154 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ This is Leonard’s night, isn’t it ? ” he asked, looking 
down at the maid. 

“Yes, Humphry.” 

“ Perhaps he won’t come. The fog’s just about black 
enough to stop him, I should say. Anybody else coming ? ” 

“ Phoebe hopes to come.” 

“ Oh, she won’t come for certain.” 

“ I was afraid the fog might ” 

“I suggested to Jiggens that if he could see his way 
across the road he might drop in. That will do,” to the 
maid ; “ thankee ! ” And he got up, and stumped into the 
drawing-room in his slippers. 

The maid disappeared with her master’s dirty warm 
shoes held as far as possible from her apron, and Aunt 
Mildred followed her brother into the drawing-room, closing 
the door behind her. 

He had gone straight to his chair, pushed it close to 
the hearth, esconced himself there, shoved his slippered 
feet into the fender, and was feeling in his waistcoat for 
his eyeglasses, the evening newspaper on his lap. 

Aunt Mildred went to the sofa, took her needlework 
from the basket at her side, and began to sew. 

“ It’s quite cold,” she said. 

“Well, sharpish,” he replied, forcing the eyeglasses on 
to the end of his nose. He shook out the newspaper. “ The 
fog’s nothing like so bad here as t’other side of the river.” 

He had been reading for a quarter of an hour, when 
the door opened and Leonard entered the room. 

Aunt Mildred’s face lighted up in a moment. A careful 
observer might have seen that she really had to lay severe 
restraint upon herself to remain seated as he approached. 

Old Humphry half turned his head over his shoulder, 
and demanded : “ Who’s this ? Leonard ! ” Then, turning 
to his newspaper again : “ So you braved the fog did 

you ? ” 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


155 

“ I came early, before it got worse,” replied Leonard, 
kissing the side of his father’s head. 

“ What about going back ? ” asked the old man, still 
reading. 

“ He could sleep here if necessary,” said Aunt Mildred. 

“ Yes, I suppose he could. I see that Master Maurice 
has begun to climb down. Written a letter to the papers 
denying that he is a rebel. Says the Government means 
to undertake social reform directly constitutional business 
is out of the way. What a humbug the fellow is ! ” He 
shook the paper and turned over-leaf. 

“ Well, Leonard,” Aunt Mildred asked, “how have you 
been getting on ? ” 

He smiled at her through his spectacles. “ I’m not quite 
sure whether I’ve been getting on at all,” he replied. 

“There’s not much doing just now, I expect?” 

“ Oh, a good deal,” he replied ; “ but too many people 
nibbling at it.” 

Without looking at his son, old Humphry suddenly asked 
him what he thought of Maurice Sangster. 

Leonard turned his head slowly, pouted his lips, frowned 
at the fire very austerely, and looked exceedingly like a 
perplexed owl. 

“ He gave you a start at the Parliamentary Bar, I know 
that,” said old Humphry ; “ or at least, if he didn’t, it was 
through some of his friends in the House of Commons. I 
don’t expect you to say anything vindictive, but in your 
heart, what do you think of him as a politician ? ” 

Leonard replied slowly and judicially: “I should say 
he was perfectly honest.” 

“ Should you, though ? ” 

“ Whether his judgment is good is another matter. ,, 

“ But you think hitn honest?” 

“ On the whole, yes.” 

“Well, I don’t.” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


156 

After an uncomfortable pause of a few minutes, Aunt 
Mildred said in her soft, gentle voice, smiling at Leonard: 
“ One thing we can be quite sure of — he’s devoted to 
Phoebe.” 

“ She helps him,” said old Humphry. “ She’s useful. 
Look how he drags her about the country with him. The 
rogue knows the value of a lady.” 

“ I’m sure he’s very proud of her,” said Aunt Mildred, 
in her quiet, perfectly composed, and inoffensive way of 
insisting upon her opinions; “ and I’m equally sure that he 
is very fond of her.” 

Old Humphry only said : “ I suppose he has got what he 
wants out of the Government, some promise of a minor 
office to shut his mouth — and now he means to behave him- 
self. But what will the paymaster say? There’s a rogue 
for you ! That Girshel fellow. Fancy any man of decency 
placing himself in the power of a rascal like that ! ” 

Leonard said to his aunt : “ I saw Phoebe yesterday.” 

“Did you? Tell me about her. I’m afraid the fog will 
prevent her from coming to-night. How is she? And 
the children? I sent little Humphry a box of bricks 
yesterday — very garish. Did she say if his cold was 
better? ” 

“ I don’t think she did.” 

“Then it is better!” She looked up with one of her 
bright smiles. 

“They had been to luncheon with Lord Ravenstruther, 
and just came in to see me on their way home. Phoebe 
said she was quite overwhelmed.” 

“ Such grandeur, I suppose ? ” 

“ Yes. Tremendous.” 

Old Humphry laughed in his throat. “ That pleased our 
young Socialist, I’ll warrant ! ” 

He threw the paper down, put his hands together, and 
looked at the fire with a malicious grin in his eyes. 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 157 

“Did Phoebe enjoy herself? Did she like those great 
people?” inquired Aunt Mildred. 

“ She said that Lady Ravenstruther evidently meant to 
be kind and tried to be kind, but the whole thing was so 
formal, and solemn, and unreal, that she was glad to 
escape.” 

Old Humphry grinned at the fire with great amusement, 
smacking the fingers of one hand on the back of the other, 
his elbows digging into the arms of the chair. 

“ I hope all the more that she will come to-night,” said 
Aunt Mildred. “ I should like to hear her own description. 
You are not particularly graphic, Leonard.” 

Old Humphry began to swing his head slowly up and 
down, smiling very grimly. 

“ Well, I wasn’t there, to begin with,” replied Leonard, 
“ and Maurice had such a lot to say about ” 

“ Ah, I’ll be bound he had ! ” cried old Humphry, with a 
great laugh; and he got up vigorously, shook himself, 
laughed again, and then stalked away to the door. “ I 
can see him eating at lords’ tables ! ” he said heartily. “ And 
I can see him eating his own words there, without turning 
a hair — yes, without turning a hair ! ” He opened the 
door, passed out, and banged it after him. 

Directly he was gone from the room, Aunt Mildred put 
away her needlework, slipped off the sofa on to her knees, 
laid her hands round Leonard, kissed him, and said : “ Tell 
me, how is it going? ” 

You would have taken her for his mother, not for his 
aunt; and perhaps that was the real difference in her af- 
fection for her nephew and niece. She adored Leonard 
as a mother adores her son; she loved Phoebe as a nice 
aunt loves a nice niece. 

She was one of those reddish, straw-colored women who 
take all the strength and health and joy that life in the 
open air of a country like England can give to humanity. 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


158 

Her complexion made one feel well to look at it; her fat 
friendly eyes, that for all their smallness filled the sockets 
as a Brazil nut fills its shell, shone with an overflowing 
kindness; she had a cheerful short nose, a largish upper 
lip, but with none of her brother’s severity; a comfortable 
chin, and the total expression of her pleasant face was 
one of ruddy and chubby and bountiful warm-hearted- 
ness. 

“ I don’t think it is going at all well,” answered Leonard, 
with a wry smile. “ I find I shrink more and more from 
what is called declaring oneself. And she doesn’t help me 
in the least. That’s a bad sign, isn’t it ? I’ve always under- 
stood that when they approve they are more than ready to 
loose the stammering tongues, and to bow the awkward 
knees of their hesitant suitors. Moreover, her mother 
doesn’t encourage me. That’s a worse sign still.” 

“Why not write to her?” 

“ I thought about that, oddly enough, only last night.” 

“Well, you haven’t abandoned hope, then?” 

“Yes, over the letter.” 

“ How was that? ” 

“When I came to think it over I felt a fool. To begin 
with, she is really exceedingly beautiful. Then she is sur- 
rounded by the most agreeable and amusing people you 
can imagine. And then — well, what have I got to offer 
her?” 

“Now, Leonard” — very seriously and thoughtfully, 
stroking his arm, and looking up at him — “ why don’t you 
let me speak to your father? Why don’t you? Or — why 
don’t you speak yourself ? I think it is time we got matters 
on to a really proper footing. I wasn’t at all satisfied when 
I got your father to go to little Humphry’s baptism, and 
to ask you to dine here once a week; that was only a be- 
ginning. It was better, but a start, nothing more. The 
present position is not at all a right one, and it has lasted 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


159 

long enough. I am quite ready, if only you will give me 
your permission, to open negotiations.” 

“ There’s one thing I haven’t told you yet,” said Leonard. 

“ What is it? ” 

“ Something quite fatal to your scheme, I’m afraid. She’s 
a Roman Catholic.” 

“ Oh, Leonard ! ” 

“ You can imagine the effect of that announcement on 
my father. But I think it is much wiser not to consider it 
at all. I’ve no reason to suppose — quite the contrary — 
that she regards me with the smallest interest. Therefore, 
why make matters here far worse by a disclosure that is so 
unnecessary ? ” He looked at his aunt, and said : “ Can’t 
you see him storming if we told him? and can’t you hear 
him chuckling if she refused me after all? How the old 
angel would relish such a congenial anticlimax ! ” Leonard 
did not laugh as he made this final remark, but he lifted his 
eyebrows almost high, depressed the corners of his mouth, 
and over the top of his spectacles quite smiled at the fire. 

“ I’m sorry, really sorry, that she’s a Catholic,” said 
Aunt Mildred, a finger at her lip. “ That, I’m afraid, does 
complicate matters worse than ever. You see your father 
has quite made up his mind that you will go over to Rome.” 

“ I know he has.” 

“ What a pity — what a pity it is ! ” 

He put a hand upon her shoulder. “ Don’t worry, you 
very dear creature. The difficulty is not here, but there. 
I was a dreadful greenhorn ever to think that she cared 
tuppence about me. I must put that out of mind. And my 
heart isn’t anywhere near broken.” 

“ But you love her, Leonard ? ” 

“ Oh, I’m fond of her, yes ; very fond of her, indeed,” 
replied the lover. 

At that moment the door opened, and the servant an- 
nounced Mr. Jiggens. 


i6o 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


VII 

She really was, as Leonard saw, exceedingly beautiful. 
She was so extremely beautiful, in fact, that most young 
men sheered nervously away from her, seeking solace on 
the lower plane of prettiness, where they could sparkle 
on the surface of small talk without the inconvenience of 
feeling that they were making fools of themselves. It 
was only a very sober, slow-moving, and deep-minded per- 
son, like Leonard Champness, who could find rest for his 
soul in the company of such a splendid creature as this 
particularly splendid creature, Ruth Kingsford. 

Her father was said by good judges to be the ablest, as 
he was probably the most auriferous, Queen’s Counsel prac- 
ticing at the Parliamentary Bar. Her mother was the only 
daughter of that gracious President of the Royal Academy 
who is remembered for his personal beauty and his ad- 
mirable after-dinner speeches, while his pictures, hanging 
in the dining-rooms and drawing-rooms of provincial 
bourgeoisie, are now charitably forgotten by gentlemen 
traveling in the line of art criticism. 

Sir Edward Kingsford, the father, was tall, solid, endur- 
ing, rather Norman than otherwise; Lady Kingsford, the 
mother, was tall too, but slight, graceful, willowy, and 
Grecian. Their five daughters and three sons composed a 
group of late Victorian humanity which could hardly be 
equaled from one end of England to the other for charm, 
freshness, and beauty. There was perceptible, on certain 
occasions, just a hint of suburbanism in this delightful 
family, but they were very well educated, very kind-hearted, 
and very happy people. 

They lived in one of those cheerful and comfortable 
houses which appear at suitable distances from each other 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


161 


on the wooded heights of Hampstead Heath; and they 
made of this house, with their laughter, their music, their 
games, and their affection, something infinitely more at- 
tractive than the hymn-writers have at present been able 
to discover in that Paradise which most of them appear to 
think, on evidence which would certainly fail to convince a 
common jury, ought to disgust us with terrestrial exist- 
ence. 

The gardens of this house were described by the more 
effusive of Lady Kingsford’s feminine acquaintances — she 
was kind to everybody — as “ a perfect dream,” a phrase 
which produced a state of excessive irritation in the minds 
of the gardeners, especially on a very hot and back-aching 
day devoted to planting out. But they really were genuine 
English gardens, as full of repose as of beauty, as consola- 
tory with restfulness as they were bewitching with loveliness. 

Birds sang in this enchanting sanctuary on a fine spring 
morning as if no Easter Monday were in the calendar, and 
no cocoanut-shies, Aunt Sallies, merry-go-rounds, and 
swing-boats were coming to Hampstead Heath from the 
distant fog of East London. The kitchen garden was as 
full of flowers as the borders running round the lawns, 
and in the kitchen garden one could stand for a full hour 
on a lazy afternoon eating raspberries and gooseberries 
without making any noticeable difference in the loads of 
the bushes. Under the shade of venerable oak trees, out 
of sight of habitation, you could lie in a hammock or sit 
in a low chair, listening to the distant sounds of croquet 
and tennis beyond yew hedges, reading a book or watching 
butterflies and bumble bees in the flowers, till a neat maid- 
servant came to inquire whether she should bring you your 
tea or would you prefer to join the others. 

And, of course, whatever your age or your sex, you 
very much preferred to join the others. 

Two of Ruth’s younger sisters were already engaged, 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


162 

and the question was an urgent one in the family whether 
they should have a double wedding next year, or divide 
the two jollifications by three or four months. Ruth her- 
self had received proposals, chiefly from middle-aged gen- 
tlemen of a pensive and diffident turn of mind ; but, whether 
she had received proposals or not, there would never have 
been the least shadow of envy or jealousy in the felicitations 
she showered upon these younger sisters. For Ruth loved 
her father more than anybody in the # world, she loved her 
home more than any other home she had ever seen; and 
no novelist that ever wrote could persuade her — no gen- 
tleman who humbly and nervously ventured to apprise her 
of the state of his affections towards her, could persuade 
this singularly clear-headed young woman that marriage 
was the most blissful form of existence offered to the 
feminine sex. Where might she look for a better man than 
her father? Where would she find a happier home than 
the dear cheerful house on Hampstead Heath? A baby, 
yes; she had no doubt whatever on that score — a baby, 
obviously, would be a most delectable possession; but a 
husband! Well, a husband, Ruth Kingsford was disposed 
to think, would take all the gilt off the infant gingerbread. 

Somebody said of her : “ If Du Maurier had ever 

ventured to draw a Madonna, and Rossetti had ever at- 
tempted to draw a daughter of Belgravia, the two pictures 
balanced one against the other might have given us a fairly 
true picture of Miss Kingsford.” She had the atmosphere 
of sanctity which goes with great beauty, the intensity of 
expression which only springs from the deepest affection, 
and the refinement and distinguished qualities of the care- 
fully reared. She was dignified and austere, without being 
chill. She was splendid and handsome, without heaviness 
of any kind. She held herself regally, but only because she 
was strong, well-formed, and conscious of self-reverence. 
She looked people unflinchingly in the eyes, but only because 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 163 

she could conceive of no other reasonable way of regarding 
her fellow-creatures. 

She respected most of the things that gave her pleasure, 
rather than stooped to them. She admired big animals, 
and overlooked most of the little ones, particularly lap-dogs. 
She rode a tall well-boned, heavy-shouldered horse, to which 
she was devoted, but which she never spoilt with sugar or 
irritated by caresses. Her favorite dog was a mastiff be- 
longing to her father, which she took care to see the stable- 
men did not spoil by overfeeding. She preferred the older 
kinds of big roses, which breathed the authentic fragrance 
of their ancient ancestry, to the newer and scentless va- 
rieties which suffered from the prevalent weakness for what 
dreadful people call “ art shades/’ 

While her sisters could sing very well, or play the piano 
and violin quite creditably, and while her brothers were 
rather distinguished, in their characters of young officers, 
for these same accomplishments, Ruth never performed at 
all In the drawing-room she helped her mother at the 
tea-table, and saw that other people were comfortable. In 
the gardens she was the unquestionable mistress of the 
gardeners, as in the stables no groom dared to go against 
her orders. She was rather slow at tennis, but at croquet 
and archery she was easily head of the family. But her 
real power lay far away from anything in the nature of 
diversion. > 

She was one of those beautiful women who begin to 
use their intellect before they know they are beautiful, 
and so find themselves curious, attentive, unsatisfied, and 
athirst before the world has convinced them of their per- 
fection. She had been interested in languages and science 
as a girl, and this interest was just growing into a divine 
curiosity when she did up her hair and came down to 
dinner in a low neck. She was her father’s companion on 
his walks, and those walks encouraged her in the truth of 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


164 

her growing conviction that the kingdom of a human crea- 
ture is the mind. Kingsford was a faithful Catholic, but 
he did not close his eyes to the modifying influences on 
theology of modern science. He spoke of things frankly 
to Ruth, and though he was a better lawyer than philosopher, 
he was a sufficiently interesting and weighty person to 
influence her mind very thoroughly. 

“ One thing,” he said to her, after a discussion about 
science and theology, “ is perfectly and unshakably secure. 
Christ founded a Church. While we remain humbly and 
dutifully in that Church we need fear nothing, nor need 
we be troubled by the transitory changes of opinion. The 
Church will endure. She alone can feed our souls. And 
it is our souls, not our minds, that we commit to her.” 

When Leonard Champness was taken for the first time 
by one of his friends at the Parliamentary Bar to the 
Kingsfords’ house, he was very much bewildered by the 
atmosphere of high-spirited brightness and Gilbert and 
Sullivan gaiety which seemed to rush upon him at the open- 
ing of the drawing-room door like a malicious and practical- 
joking dragon of some ensorcelled world. I fear he cut 
but a sorry figure in that fine cheerful room, with his staring 
eyes, his frowning brows, his pouting lips, and his obstinate 
tuft of hair at the back of his head. You can picture him 
standing where his friend had left him, horribly conscious 
of a most complete isolation, with his clumsy hands clasped 
together over the abdominal region, his knees crooking 
forward, his neck stooping, his shoulders bowed, the collar 
of his coat sticking out and showing the bone collar-stud at 
the back, the tails of his coat hanging clear of his legs. 
And you will also guess that while he colored up and 
looked stupid, and dense, and boorish; and while the jolly 
young men in the room were wondering where in the deuce 
he came from; and the pretty young women, all vivacity 
and high spirits, were flashing from a distance their bright 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


165 

eyes at him full of amusement — I say you will also guess, 
while he stood there thus awkwardly, confusedly aware of 
the idea that perhaps it had been a better thing if he had 
never been born, that Ruth Kingsford came forward to him 
out of the fiery mist, touched him with the magic of simple 
kindness, rescued him from miserable isolation, and car- 
ried him off to a quiet seat in the most secluded corner of 
the room. 

Their friendship began from that moment; throughout 
the whole afternoon of this first encounter he clung to her 
with a pathetic wistfulness. When she went round the 
room with milk and cream, he followed at her heels with 
sugar. When she carried dishes of cakes, he was close 
at her elbow with plates of bread and butter. And when 
she was seated once again, he persisted in waiting upon her 
and her alone, like a royal footman. 

It was not very long before she discovered that he was 
a man of much reading, and this enabled her to talk to 
him in a way which eased his bothersome sense of awkward- 
ness. He did not talk at all well, and he was inclined, per- 
haps, to treat her as most bookish men treated women in 
those days; but gradually he discovered — at their third 
encounter, I think — that she was really interested in intel- 
lectual things, and from that moment he pursued her. 

But one day she spoke to him of a book written by a 
very great friend of hers — a priest in the English Church 
— and he discovered that she was a seeker in the fields of 
theology and philosophy, like himself. Also, he discovered 
that while less profoundly acquainted with the writings 
of the greatest theologians and philosophers than the best 
men of his acquaintance, she was infinitely better versed 
than anybody he had ever met in the literature of mysticism. 
She shared his enthusiasm for William Blake, but she knew 
how the saints had disciplined the rhapsodies of imagina- 
tion into the fruitful habit of meditation. He found himself 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


1 66 

learning from her; and learning about mysticism, he came 
to learn about love. 

“ You have taught me,” he said to her one day in the 
garden — they were eating golden gooseberries together — 
“ a thing that I had never contemplated before in my 
life.” 

“ That gooseberries are better off a bush than in a dish ? ” 
she inquired. 

“ No, I discovered that before I went into trousers.” 

“What a sharp boy! Tell me?” 

“ That serenity is the chief quality of the religious life. 
You look as if you had never fought with beasts at Ephesus, 
and you give me the notion that somehow or other it ought 
never to be necessary to be pugilistic. I never thought until 
I met you that worry is as sinful as intoxication, and that 
struggling to be good may quite possibly be the most prolific 
way of being bad. I read Carlyle as a boy, and I was born 
a Dissenter. Perhaps you cannot imagine what that means 
to a mind when it is growing up.” 

“Why are people so afraid of being happy?” she de- 
manded. “ Father Prague tells me that all the most earnest 
people he comes across are dismal people, and that all the 
most charming and gracious people he meets are not given 
to good works. Why is that ? ” 

“ But does he never come across,” asked Leonard 
lugubriously, “ those very shocking bigots who are fright- 
fully in earnest but affect jollity, and put on urbanity like 
a swagger? I have!” he exclaimed, looking at her very 
comically over the rims of his spectacles. 

“ No ; I don’t meet those people,” she said with a smile. 

“They are jolly to catch you, polite to win your esteem, 
and then suddenly, before you know where you are, they 
are speaking of the Book, and you’re done for. Oh, such 
dreadful people ! ” 

She moved up the line. 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 167 

“ Come over here ! ” she called. “ Fve found the pick of 
the garden.” 

When he came to her, she said : “ Regard this bush at- 
tentively. It is a very small and a very scrubby little bush. 
It has got hardly a leaf anywhere, and it is unnecessarily 
thorny. But it is gooseberries all over, and gooseberries of 
the finest flavor. What should the symbolist learn from 
this gooseberry bush ? ” 

“ First,” answered Leonard, stooping well down to it, 
“ to be grateful, for they are really very sweet gooseberries 
indeed; and with nice thin skins and no horrid hairs; and 
second, that the gooseberry bush which fulfills its natural 
function, however small, leafless, and misshapen, is a truer 
gooseberry bush than one which is all beautiful green leaves 
of a bush-like symmetry.” 

“ What a lot they teach men at Oxford ! ” she said, glanc- 
ing at him from her side of the bush. Then — “ Somebody 
attacked me the other day,” she told him. “ It was in the 
train. At first I thought her a very charming old lady; we 
got into conversation, and it was interesting. But presently 
she said something extremely unkind about Catholics, and 
as gently as possible I told her that she was talking to a 
Catholic. It was then that she attacked me. The change 
in the expression of her face was remarkable. She became 
hard, rabid, and censorious. I thought afterwards that if 
we had parted without this cause of our dispute having 
arisen, she would probably have remembered me as a com- 
panionable and pleasant person ; but because she discovered 
that I worshiped God in a form different from her own, 
she will never think of me again except with anxiety and 
judgment.” 

“ And how do you think of her? ” 

“ As one who has lost her way in life.” 

She rose from her stooping position, pulled the wide brim 
of her hat straight, and told him that he had eaten quite as 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


1 68 

many gooseberries as were good for him. “ I notice,” 
she said, “ that your conversation falls off as the quality of 
the gooseberries improves. A bush like this makes you a 
very Tacitus. Come along, we will go and see how the 
others are enjoying themselves.” 

“ Did you argue with that old lady ? ” he asked, following 
meekly to the path, but with five very fine gooseberries in 
the palm of his hand. 

“ I don’t think so. Well, I defended my Church once. 
She asked me to compare the condition of Catholic countries 
with the condition of Protestant countries. I think I told 
her that I preferred Catholic countries. I did certainly 
ask her whether she thought the great commercial nations 
could be truthfully described as happy nations.” 

“ We lack something,” he said. “ The Catholic countries 
would be better for some of our energy; but we should be 
better for some of their reverence. I am not sure that 
commercialism is a road to heaven.” He opened his palm 
and offered the gooseberries. 

“But you mustn’t worry about the matter,” she said, 
refusing his offer. 

“ Don’t you ever worry at all ? ” he demanded rather 
sadly. 

She shook her head. “ Why should I ? ” she asked. Then 
very quietly : “ Can there be such a thing as troubled faith ? ” 

He said to her after a pause, just as they were coming 
to the lawn : “ My brother-in-law is your antipodes. He 
worries about poverty, suffering, and injustice. He is al- 
ways thinking what he can do to change the world.” 

She stopped. “Is your brother-in-law sincere?” she 
asked. “ Forgive me, but so many politicians are not, some 
consciously, and some unconsciously.” 

“ I know. I think my brother-in-law is sincere. He 
thinks he is sincere. I’m sure of that.” 

“ I can understand an atheist fighting to change the 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


169 

world, and fretting himself to death at the hopeless task; 
but I can’t understand how a man who believes, really 
believes, ever gets himself into that frame of mind. Protes- 
tants — you won’t mind my saying so — are such worrying 
people ! ” 

Her serenity filled him with admiration, but a doubt lay 
behind his instinctive reverence for the quiet of her soul. 
“ I envy you,” he said slowly, “ your tranquillity ; and I 
almost think that to be perfectly undisturbed, perfectly 
undistracted, by the wretchedness of life, is one of the great 
summits of spiritual attainment; all the same, I think it is 
rather a fine thing to be a fighter, and all the same, I can’t 
shut my eyes to the fact that if everybody did nothing, life 
would be more confounded than it is now.” 

He looked at her questioningly, unhappy that he had not 
stated his case better, afraid that she would annihilate him. 

“ That was one thing I said to the old lady in the train,” 
she replied, with a quiet smile. “ I was asked to compare 
all the great and numerous agencies for good which exist 
in Protestant countries, particularly in England, with the 
Evangelical inactivity of Catholic countries. She told me 
the exact number of pounds, many millions, which are spent 
every year in England by charitable societies. I told her 
that I very greatly admired the self-sacrifice represented 
by this immense sum of money; but I had to say that if I 
was a Protestant I should certainly be inclined to question 
why the result was so small. I don’t know very much about 
the conditions of manufacturing cities, but, of course, I 
know your brother-in-law’s articles, and I quoted them fairly 
effectually. I asked her to compare the lives of poor people 
in the great industrial centers of England with the lives of 
the peasants in Ireland, in France, and in Italy. I told her 
that an English mob filled me with horror. I invited her to 
visit Hampstead Heath on the next Bank Holiday. I 
suggested that she should go to such a town as Bursby, 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


170 

and make inquiries among the people as to their religious 
views.” 

She ceased, and then, looking at him with a greater in- 
terest, she said : “ I should like to meet your brother-in-law.” 

“ May I bring him?” 

“ Will he be so good as to come ? ” 

“ I’m sure he would.” 

“ My friend, Father Prague, is coming to stay with us 
in a fortnight’s time. I should like your brother-in-law 
to meet him, and I want you to meet him too. He’s the 
finest Anglican I know.” 

They were going forward across the lawn when she said 
to him: “True Dissenters and true Catholics are really of 
one mind on the only point that matters — they both believe 
that a man’s life must be changed at its center before you 
can do any" good with him. But a Catholic acts on this 
belief ; the Protestant doesn’t. That is why Catholic coun- 
tries are so quiet, and Protestant countries so progressive ! ” 

He swallowed the last gooseberry, wiped his mouth with 
his handkerchief, .and said : “ If Catholics and Protestants 
only talked about the things they believe in common, perhaps 
the other things which they don’t agree about would dimin- 
ish in number. But, of course, there will never be one 
Church.” 

“ But there is! ” she answered. 

“Yours?” he asked. 

“ No. Yours and mine. Everybody’s, who knows that 
life itself is more than Church, State, or Knowledge.” 


VIII 

Maurice and Phoebe got out of the train at Petworth. 
A very admirable, cockaded, long-coated footman hurried 
forward, touching his hat, to relieve Phoebe of her bag. 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


171 

When they were in the fine carriage, and the two tall 
horses, having got over their first perturbation at having 
to pull such an out-and-out Radical, were trotting quietly 
and majestically along the country road, Phoebe said to 
Maurice : “ I wish you could have left me at home ! I feel 
very uncomfortable.” 

“ Nonsense! ” he said; “ why should you?” 

“ I prefer my own way of living,” she replied. “ These 
great people only distress me.” 

“ My dear Phoebe,” he answered, “ it is for you to im- 
prove them — their women, I mean.” He cleared his throat, 
settled himself more easily in the carriage, and said : “ I 
have not accepted this invitation to enjoy myself, or to play 
the sycophant ; I have accepted it because I am determined 
to conquer the Liberal Party for Radicalism. I bring you 
with me, that you may act upon the women, as I shall act 
upon the men. I want you to stick to your guns. I want 
you to tell them what you know of the sufferings of the poor. 
You have heard all my speeches. You know how clamorous 
the country is for social reform. Let the women you meet 
know that.” Then, as an afterthought: “You have less 
reason than I have to be distressed or uncomfortable by 
the ways of these rich people. You are a lady, and you 
have been educated as a lady. I consider that you are quite 
as good as any of them.” 

When they arrived at the house, they were conducted 
by a footman through the beautiful hall to the garden, 
where a number of very elegant people, waited upon by 
footmen and the butler, were taking tea under the shade 
of some trees. Lord Ravenstruther set down his cup on 
the grass, wiped his fingers on his handkerchief, and came 
forward to greet his visitors, shaking out his trousers. He 
was most friendly and kind, and Lady Ravenstruther ( nee 
Goggenheimer), standing to greet them, was kind too, 
without the least vestige of an American accent. 


172 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


Among the guests were the Foreign Secretary, the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a distinguished, very 
wealthy, extremely cultured Radical of the philosophical 
order who had the greatest admiration for Maurice as a 
demagogue. They were all kind and gracious in their wel- 
come. Phoebe was made to sit down between Lady Raven- 
struther and the Foreign Secretary. Maurice was provided 
with a chair between Mr. Martindale, the Chancellor, and 
the philosophical Radical. When they were quite settled, 
and tea had been brought to them, Ravenstruther let himself 
down on the grass, stretched out his long legs, pulled the 
brim of his Panama hat well over his eyes, and supported 
his curved trunk on his elbows. 

Maurice had made a noticeable change in his appearance. 
The luxuriance of his locks had been curbed, his mustache 
was clipped back, his beard had been trimmed to little more 
than a tuft. No one now would have seen a likeness to 
Charles Dickens. He looked what he really was — an en- 
tirely earnest, pessimistic, and rhetorical Radical. One 
lock of dark hair fell across his white forehead. His tufted 
beard had a slight upward point. His eyes were full of 
challenge and fight. He wore a red tie. 

Phoebe looked exactly like a lady in a rather small way 
of business, who had ordered a new dress from the best 
milliner on the occasion of a bazaar in aid of the chapel. 
It was of a terra-cotta complexion, this creation, stiffly 
boned, puffed at various points, and adorned wherever pos- 
sible with those little gatherings of the material which are 
known as gaugings. She wore a minute brown bonnet on 
the top of her hair, and brown kid gloves which she did 
not remove for tea. 

An observer of this group of people might have been 
led to believe that while the more aristocratic and godless 
section had taken no thought whatever as to what they 
should wear, the humbler and godly husband and wife had 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 173 

spent a very considerable time on this exceedingly worldly 
occupation. 

Nobody in that group could have spoken better on 
domestic politics than Maurice, but, unfortunately, domestic 
politics did not present themselves for conversation. And 
nobody there, I am inclined to think, could have discoursed 
with more point and effect on babies than Phoebe; but 
here, again, babies did not crop up. The men were 
speaking lazily of country subjects; the women were chat- 
ting about their friends, and music, and plays. 

When Maurice went upstairs to dress for dinner, he was 
inclined to think that Phoebe had been right. These people 
were not his people. This world was not his world. 

He said to her : “ We’ll stick to our guns, Phoebe. It’s 
not very pleasant for us here, I admit. But it’s only for a 
day or two. And then we’ll go back to our home and to 
our life. I shall do my best to wake these men up to the 
true state of affairs ; I shall strive with all my might after 
dinner to convert them; and whether I win or whether I 
fail, I shall go back on Monday to our own simple, natural, 
and homely life to work harder than ever for the poor.” 

Phoebe wore a high neck, and was so frightfully shocked 
by the dresses of the great ladies that her nervousness and 
diffidence were completely swallowed up in righteous in- 
dignation. She was very like a death’s-head at the dinner- 
table. You really should have seen her upper lip. 

It was late, nearly one o’clock, when Maurice came to 
her room. He found her sleeping and longed to wake her. 
His eyes were shining, his brain was on the rush with 
triumph and ambition. Instead of being on the outside 
of things, he had found himself in the very center. The 
men had gathered round him when the ladies went to bed, 
and although they smoked and drank whisky, they had list- 
ened with the very deepest sympathy to the narrative which 
they themselves had invited him to unfold. The Foreign 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


i74 

Secretary had been really interested, the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer had been distinctly encouraging. These two 
important Cabinet Ministers had shown him the very great- 
est consideration. There could be no doubt of that what- 
ever. They had repeatedly exchanged glances when he 
spoke about the state of the North, and had said to each 
other again and again, “ Most interesting,” or, “ I am sure 
he is right.” And the philosophical Radical, a literary 
baronet of great wealth, had said to Maurice: “You are 
the best friend the Liberal Party has got, Sangster, the best 
and the truest friend.” 

He wanted to tell Phoebe all about this, but Phoebe was 
so very fast asleep that her mouth was open, her face was 
red, and she was snoring. He held the candle over her, 
and it made little points of light among the hair-curlers, 
which looked like the wires of an inferior tiara divested of 
its sham diamonds ; but she did not stir. Her flannel night- 
gown was huddled with the bedclothes round her shoulders; 
the little round head with its screwed-up hair was all that 
could be seen of her. 

Maurice said his prayers with very considerable difficulty. 
He even questioned whether a man could offer profitable 
prayers when his mind is tremendously engaged with a 
matter of very first-rate importance. 

He got into bed, blew out the candle, and lay on his back, 
his hands behind his head, thinking. 

All his thoughts came round to the door that was open- 
ing before him — the door of the Cabinet. But he did not 
feast his soul upon this thought selfishly. He was perfectly 
honest. He rejoiced in his victory because it was the victory 
of his religion and his politics. He would not enter the 
Cabinet as an obedient Whig, but as a conquering Radical. 
He would not rise to the headship of the nation to clothe 
himself in purple and fine linen, but to lift up the humble 
and meek. 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


175 


You can guess how long it was before he fell asleep, and 
mingled his hard, stertorous breathing with the slow, 
regular, and contented snores of the placid Phoebe. 

When he awoke he was aware of voices. He opened his 
eyes frowningly, closed them again because the room was 
streaming with light, and wondered who it was talking 
at his side. 

He said, in a growling way, “ Phoebe ! ” and she said to 
him : “ They have sent us some tea, Maurice dear ” 

“ Tea ! ” he interrupted, “ why, what’s the time? ” And 
turning over, rubbing his face in the pillow, and drawing a 
long breath, he was just about to drop off asleep again, 
when a voice dimly familiar, that became all at once a 
voice horribly, awfully, and shatteringly familiar, exclaimed 
in a nasal drawl : 

“ Ow, lor’ ! why, he’s grown a beard ! ” 

He jerked himself on to his elbow, rubbed his face with 
his hands, sat up, and looked with blinking eyes at Maud 
Gowler, who was standing beside his wife with the tea-tray. 

“ Where am I ? ” he demanded. 

“ He dunno where he are ! ” said Miss Gowler, who, in 
spite of a very smart, prim, and rigid appearance, was as 
much disposed as ever to be chatty and informing. “ I 
believe he’s forgotten he ever knew me,” she said, depressing 
the corners of her lips. She raised her eyebrows and added : 
“ It isn’t so many years ago neither ! not as years go nowa- 
days it isn’t.” 

Maurice regarded her with a fixed scrutiny, and said: 
“ What are you doing here ? ” 

“ What are you doing here ? ” she replied with great 
spirit, and very humorously for so dejected a person. “ Ow 
my, haven’t you got on, then ? I never would have believed 
it myself. I always used to say that your line was preach- 
ing. So you do know me, then? I though you’d recognize 
me when you’d got the sleep out of your eyes.” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


176 

“ This is very interesting,” he said, with a forlorn smile. 
“How are you, Miss Gowler? I’m very glad to see you. 
You’ve told Mrs. Sangster ” 

“ I haven’t told her everything,” said Maud very 
meaningly. “ I shouldn’t like to do that ! I’ve only an- 
nounced the plyne fact that you used to live along with us 
in Lambeth, when we was both in humble circumstances.” 

Phoebe had taken the tray on to her lap, and was putting 
sugar into the cups. “ Isn’t it interesting, Maurice,” she 
inquired gently — “ meeting an old acquaintance so unex- 
pectedly ? ” 

“ Ow, we was very much more than acquaintances, wasn’t 
we, Mr. Sangster?” exclaimed Maud. “Quite chummy, 
we was. Why, he syved my life once. I shall never forget 
that!” 

“ I don’t remember it,” said Maurice, going colder and 
colder. He took the cup Phoebe handed to him, and began to 
drink hastily. 

“ Why, when I was going to commit susencide. Don’t 
you remember ? ” 

“ Oh yes, to be sure. But I don’t think that you could 
call that saving your life.” 

“ I was, strite,” she said to Phoebe. “ Going to commit 
suicide! You wouldn’t think it, would you? But I was — 
really I was. I was that miserable and lonesome. You 
know what I mean, don’t you? Young girls are often took 
like that. Feel the whole world’s against them; nobody 
loves them. What’s the good of anythink?” 

She went to the washstand. “ I see you haven’t used 
the hot water ! ” holding up a cosy in one hand and a brass 
can in the other. 

“ What do you mean ? ” asked Maurice, leaning forward 
to look past the curtains in that direction. 

“ Gentlepeople always have hot water at nights,” replied 
Maud. “They wash themselves before they go to bed, 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


177 

and rinse their mouths out, all of them. But I won’t put 
it for you to-night if you don’t want it.” 

She was going vigorously about the room now — she was 
a very excellent servant — picking up things and putting 
other things in their place. “ I told the men-servants down- 
stairs,” she said, “ that I should be nervous in here this 
morning, and so I am ! It seems so funny to me to see 
you in bed with a lady I’ve never seen before. I can’t 
hardly believe it. You a married man, and mixing with the 
aristocracy, and me waiting on you! Isn’t that a chynge 
from the old dys ? ” 

“ How’s your father?” he asked abruptly. 

“ Thanks, he’s all right. Syme as ever he was. He 
doesn’t seem to alter a little bit, he don’t. I was wondering 
when you was going to ask after him! You and him was 
great friends, wasn’t you? Ow lor’! you ought to have 
heard them arguing. My word ! ” 

She went outside the door, and returned with a chair that 
had Maurice’s clothes folded on the seat. 

“ Being treated like a lord, aren’t you ? ” she smiled. 
Then with great kindness : “ They told me downstairs — it 
was my evening out last night — that you put your boots 
outside the door before dinner. Didn’t they laugh — just. 
You didn’t ought to do that. We’ve got plenty of servants 
here to come in and fetch them away, and besides, it looks 
so bad to anyone coming down the corridor, seeing a pair 
of dirty old boots between the statues ! ” 

After bustling about for several minutes she announced 
that she would come and fetch him for his bath in ten 
minutes or a quarter of an hour. “ I don’t suppose you’ve 
brought a dressing-gown with you,” she said, “ but I’ll 
bring you one. I’ll tell his lordship’s vally. His lordship 
has got ’undreds of them. All the colors of the rainbow, 
they are. I think I’ll have to select you a green one, Mr. 
Sangster ! ” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


178 

When she came to fetch him for his bath, knowing the 
men-servants and housemaids were observing her, Maud 
Gowler drew closely and familiarly to his side as they went 
down the corridor, saying: “You’ll be sure and go and see 
my people when you get back to London, won’t you ? 
They’d love to see you again, I know they would.” And at 
the bathroom door she said : “ Mind you don’t go into the 
wrong bedroom! We don’t want no scandals here. Her 
ladyship’s one of the particular ones, you know.” 

In spite of this humbling and unhappy episode, and 
although he was quite unable to rid himself during meals 
of the feeling that the men-servants were regarding him 
with horror and aversion as the perfidious lover of Maud 
Gowler, Maurice fought very ably for his hand with the 
statesmen and politicians of the party. Throughout the 
conferences of the day, however, the unexpected encounter 
with Maud Gowler sat like a lump of exceedingly heavy 
lead in the pit of his stomach. He saw a grandeur in the 
Foreign Secretary that he had not noticed on the previous 
evening, a sense of power in the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer that he had entirely overlooked during his triumph 
of that memorable evening. He was invidiously aware of a 
horrible reality in class distinctions. He felt that Maud 
Gowler, in some strange way, had smirched him with her 
own vulgarity. He was as guilty and ashamed as if he had 
put his arm around her waist and struggled to take liberties 
with her dejected lips. He felt common; he felt second- 
rate; he felt base. 

Nevertheless, his genius for persuasion made a manful 
effort during that day, when the conferences were private, 
and the Cabinet Ministers were rather impressed than 
otherwise by his subdued manner, which they both took for 
a sense of modesty. 

He felt, as Phoebe did, that the atmosphere of the house 
was ungodly. Most of the guests went to church, it is true, 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


179 

and nothing in the simple service at that village church, 
except its dread formalism, distressed Maurice’s conscience ; 
but there was such evidence everywhere of superabundant 
wealth, such excessive luxury, such wanton splendor, that 
the young Radical, smarting from his encounter with Miss 
Gowler, and dreading that her version of the suicide episode 
might reach Lord Ravenstruther via the valet, felt it 
difficult at times to believe with his whole soul that these 
people really understood the spirit of Radicalism. He hated 
them the more for his own unmerited humiliation. 

He was naturally distressed that a lady like Phoebe should 
have been exposed to the impertinent familarity of a person 
like Maud Gowler, but he was also distinctly annoyed that 
the dresses of the great ladies should have offered a positive 
affront to the virtue and respectability of Mrs. Sangster. It 
eased the burden of his own personal humiliation to take 
umbrage against society on behalf of his wife. 

He said to her on their way home: “We will live our 
own life, Phoebe. These people are passing away. Their 
reign is over. I feel that the statesman of Radicalism 
must keep himself quite clear of these rich aristocrats; he 
must not mix with them, nor share even temporarily their 
luxury. While there is so much penury and wretchedness 
in the world, luxury is a crime. I won’t touch it. I belong 
to the people, and I will live with the people.” 

She put her hand through his arm, nestled close to him, 
and said : “ Aren’t you glad, Maurice dear, that you didn’t, 
after all, marry Miss Gowler?” 

They laughed together, and became happier as the train 
bore them farther and farther from Ravenstruther’s fine 
house. He agreed that it would be a very jolly thing to 
see the children again. He was like a boy going home for 
his holidays. 

“ You will have a great deal to tell Aunt Mildred ! ” he 
said. 


i8o THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

“ Not when papa is within hearing! ” she replied. 

They laughed at that, but behind his happiness was the 
shadow of a great fear that he had failed to convince the 
Cabinet Ministers of his own fitness for Cabinet rank. He 
told himself rather bitterly that in all probability Maud 
Gowler had dished him. 


IX 

Leonard Champness was anxious that his vigorous and 
intrepid brother-in-law should not blunder into a false step 
or commit an indiscretion. At the same time, he feared 
himself to give offense by even a hint to one whose circum- 
scribed origin might very well have made him over-sensitive 
in such matters. 

“ I think I told you/’ he said off-handedly, towards the 
end of their walk, “ that the Kingsfords are Catholics.” 

“ I forget whether you did or not,” answered Maurice, 
“but it makes no difference. In the House of Commons 
we learn to be tolerant.” 

“They are Conservatives, too.” 

“ I can’t imagine rich people being anything else ! ” re- 
joined Maurice, smiling on the world about him. 

Leonard was relieved to find his brother-in-law so genial 
and large-minded. He was rather puzzled, though, to 
account for his high spirits. 

They were walking up the Heath together, and no doubt 
Leonard would have ascribed Maurice’s happiness to the 
spectacle of love in painful embryo and love consummated 
by domesticity, which met their eyes at every turn, par- 
ticularly on benches and in the romantic shade of trees and 
bushes, had he not detected the same spirit of happiness in 
his usually preoccupied and severe brother-in-law when he 
called for him at his house in Camden Town. 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


181 


“ I suppose,” he said, “ that in the House of Commons 
a man of intelligence very soon loses any narrowness of 
view which he ” 

“Very soon,” interrupted Maurice, with a short laugh; 
“ and if he isn’t careful, he may lose his soul as well. The 
House of Commons is the greatest assembly in the world ; 
it is also the most perilous.” 

“ I suppose so.” 

“ But we’re going to alter its character,” continued 
Maurice. “ When Constitutional questions are adjusted, 
and Social Reform becomes a reality, the composition of 
the House will be changed. The effect upon the character 
of the House will be enormous.” 

“ One is watching the transition with great interest.” 

“ My dear Leonard, it’s a revolution ! ” 

“ Is it?” 

“ Absolutely a revolution. Wait ; you will see ! When 
democracy is in earnest, and the House of Commons is a 
faithful reflection of democracy, the step will be taken — 
the enormous step — which separates a debating society from 
a house of business.” 

“ But it will demand a long time. Democracy is so stupid. 
Fifty years, I should say. Do you agree?” 

“ Wait a little,” replied Maurice very significantly. 

They turned in at the drive gate of the Kingsfords’ house. 
Maurice was immediately struck by the dignity of the ap- 
proach. He had accepted Leonard’s invitation with the 
feeling that he was rather pleasantly stooping to oblige his 
brother-in-law by visiting these suburban friends. Phoebe, 
to tell truth, had persuaded him to go. 

“ What wealth there is in the country ! ” he exclaimed. 

“ Are you hungering to tax it ? ” inquired Leonard. 

“ Just look at this fine place, here in London, at the very 
edge of the most congested city in the world ! Why, it’s a 
park ! ” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


182 

The house disappointed him a little. “ I expected a 
Buckingham Palace,” he said, laughing. Then he added: 
“ But it looks like a home. I rather like its comfortable 
appearance.” 

They were conducted to the drawing-room, and as the 
door opened Maurice was slightly perturbed, as Leonard 
had been, by the sounds of revelry which greeted him. He 
remembered that it was Sunday; he reminded himself that 
he was a Dissenter; he knew he was a Social Reformer. 

Ruth looked up with interest as they entered. She was 
stooping to offer a dish of cakes to a dear old lady seated 
on a very low chair who was slightly deaf, and who wanted 
to know, before she took a cake, if Ruth had really been 
quite well lately. As it happened, Ruth was the first person 
seen by Maurice as he followed Leonard into the room. 

She thought to herself : “ He is a very striking-looking 
person. He has the hawk-like appearance of all great agi- 
tators — the passion to soar, the necessity to be cruel.” 

And Maurice said to himself : “ That’s as handsome a 
creature as ever I saw in my life.” 

He was flattered by the immediate interest his entrance 
aroused. People evidently knew he was coming. Conver- 
sation slowed down almost to silence. Everybody seemed 
to be looking at him, and pretending that they weren’t. 

He was used to the applause of multitudes, and to the 
overwhelming flattery of small circles; but here he tasted 
the pleasure of making a quiet and profound sensation on 
extremely polite and well-bred people who are not easily 
moved to curiosity or enthusiasm. 

Sir Edward Kingsford greeted him as a guest of honor. 
“ Very good of you to come and see us,” he said. 

Maurice glanced round the room. “ What a very pleasant 
party!” he exclaimed. “You have discovered the secret 
of happiness — you give happiness to other people.” He 
was looking about the room for Ruth. 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 183 

“ Young people make a house cheerful,” answered Kings- 
ford. 

Leonard joined them. “ I want to introduce you to Miss 
Kingsford,” he said to Maurice, “ and to her friend, Father 
Prague.” 

“ Father Prague ! ” exclaimed Maurice, starting. 

Kingsford said: “ Come along; let me introduce you. 
Will you bring some tea, Champness ? ” 

Kingsford had turned about, and as Maurice followed 
him he saw Father Prague sitting in a chair by the window, 
looking towards him. Almost at the same moment he 
noticed that the beautiful girl of his curiosity was standing 
by the open window talking to the Anglican priest. 

The excessive labor of his campaign, his endless journal- 
ism, the burden of an ever-increasing correspondence, and 
the little daily and hourly worries which beset every man 
struggling to make a great career who has given domestic 
hostages to fortune — these things had set their marks on 
the face of Maurice. He was no longer smooth, eager; 
propitiatory. No one would have taken him now either for 
an elocutionist or a pastor. It was impossible to think of 
him asking anyone to join with him in prayer. 

Ruth said to herself as she greeted him: “Yes, he is a 
hawk. That little face of his, with the white skin strained 
over the bone, those bright dark eyes, fierce with unrest, 
that disordered hair with the lock falling over the feverish 
forehead, that grim mouth under the mustache and beard, 
tell one exactly what the hawk tells one. He suffers and 
he inflicts suffering.” 

Maurice said to himself : “ Here is a very beautiful young 
woman who has never known what it is to want.” 

When Leonard brought him tea, Maurice said to Ruth: 
“ You have finished, and Father Prague has finished. I 
am sure you would much rather be in the garden. May I 
come with you and drink my tea there ? ” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


184 

“ If you would like it,” she answered, and led the way. 

It flattered Maurice that the Anglican priest made room 
for him to pass out first, insisting upon this politeness, 
with an engaging smile and a friendly pressure behind his 
arm. 

How beautiful the garden was! How pleasant to be 
standing on the smooth lawn drinking his tea and looking 
at Ruth Kingsford! He told himself that this was life as 
it should be for everyone. There was something of real 
homeliness and natural happiness here which the household 
of Lord Ravenstruther lacked. He was conscious of an 
exceeding tolerance, of a great content, and of a hope that 
one day he might himself possess such a home. 

“You have not been campaigning since we last met?” 
inquired the priest. 

“No; I am very glad to rest.” 

“ One hears that the party is coming round to your view.” 

Maurice smiled towards Ruth. “ But Miss Kingsford, I 
understand, does not share our enthusiasm.” 

She smiled. “ I am interested.” 

“ And she wants to alter things as much as we do,” said 
Father Prague. “ Only in her own way.” 

“ I am sure,” said Maurice, “ she would not be content 
with things as they are.” 

“ Why are things as they are ? ” she asked quietly, meet- 
ing his gaze. 

“ Because,” he answered, “ they are not quite bad enough 
to produce a revolution.” 

“ But you mean,” interrupted Father Prague, turning 
to Ruth, “what is the ultimate cause of human unhappi- 
ness ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ So far as I can trace it,” replied Maurice, beginning to 
set his teeth, “the origin of our mischief is the feudal 
system.” 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


185 

Father Prague smiled all over his face, laid a hand on 
Maurice’s arm, and, looking down, said to him : “ My dear 
sir, you speak as a politician to a lady who is addressing 
you as a theologian! Miss Kingsford wants to drive you 
back beyond the feudal system. She wants to land you 
under the tree of life which grew in the midst of the Garden 
of Eden. Come, you must be careful ! ” 

The sensation that he had blundered awkwardly, the 
knowledge that Father Prague was putting him right with a 
disposition not to hurt his feelings, stung Maurice sharply. 
He answered quickly : “ I am not a theologian. I am afraid 
I shall disappoint Miss Kingsford.” 

Ruth put out her hand for his cup. “Let me get you 
some more tea,” she said. 

“ On no account,” he answered, drawing back the cup. 

Father Prague laid hold of the saucer from the other 
side. “ You must let me do that,” he said, with a laugh. 
“ It is an opportunity to return a kindness, and it is an 
honor.” When he had possessed himself of the cup he 
said : “ Stay and talk with Miss Kingsford,” and went off 
on his errand. 

Maurice looked at Ruth. She had turned her gaze to 
the house, following Father Prague; but, knowing that 
Maurice looked at her, she brought her eyes round and met 
his glance. “ I feel that you are going to teach me, Miss 
Kingsford,” he said seriously, and with no smile. 

“ That is a very great compliment ! ” 

“ Will you tell me what you consider is the root cause 
of human unhappiness ? ” 

“ A will at cross-purposes with the universe,” she replied. 

“ In my Church we preach about changing that will.” 

“ And in mine, too.” 

“ Indeed?” 

“ But you want to alter the conditions of life politically ? ” 

“ Nothing is nearer to my heart.” 


1 86 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ I know.” 

He looked at her quickly. 

“ I can see it in your face,” she said, meeting his eyes 
unflinchingly. “ And your fierce speeches and your fierce 
articles have always struck me as sincere,” she added. 
“ That is why I was interested, why I wanted to meet you.” 

Father Prague arrived with the teacup, followed by 
Leonard with bread and butter and cake. 

Leonard talked to Father Prague, and Maurice, turning 
to Ruth as quickly as possible, with his cup in his hand, 
at once resumed their conversation. 

“ I am sincere,” he said, “ because I love what I have set 
my hand to.” 

“ That is what I want you to tell me about,” she rejoined. 
“ You have set your hand to pull down, and you love that. 
Presently you must set your hand to build afresh.” She 
paused. “ Will you love that, too? ” she inquired. 

He kept his eyes fixed upon hers, and did not answer. 

“You will certainly pull things down,” she said gently, 
smiling upon him out of the fullness of her serenity, “ but 
will you build? I wonder about that. And I want you 
to build. I think it is the builder we need.” 

He said slowly: “You are reading my mind; and yet I 
feel you are so angry with the first page that you refuse to 
turn over.” 

“ Angry ? ” she asked, very quietly. 

“To have said ‘ interested ’ would have been presump- 
tuous.” 

“ But to have been presumptuous would have been to hit 
upon truth,” she said, “and you are too busy a man, 
Mr. Sangster, to waste time on anything but the truth. Tell 
me. What is on the second page? I have read the first. 
I am so interested that I want to know what is overleaf.” 

He looked about him for a place where he might put 
down his teacup. She told him to leave it on the grass. 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 187 

“ You would like to walk,” she said, “ and so should I. 
Come along. I will show you our roses.” 

“ You have placed me in the unfortunate situation,” said 
Maurice — “ unfortunate for you, uncomfortable for me — 
of having to play the proselytizer. I can feel the demagogue 
rising in my blood ! In order to clear myself in your eyes, I 
must seek to convert you. Have I your permission to 
preach ? ” 

“ Most sermons,” she answered, “ are addressed to the 
converted.” 

“ But you are Conservative ; I am a Radical.” 

“ It must be powerful preaching,” she said, smiling, “ to 
change a temperament.” Then, looking at him : “ But be- 
gin ; I mustn’t waste your time.” 

At that he plunged into his subject. He would pull down 
only what was cruel, tyrannous, shameful, what was 
abominably and atrociously inhuman. Until the superstruc- 
ture was down, how could he build? He would build up 
from the foundations — the foundations of our common 
humanity — a new house of life for the habitation of men, a 
habitation strong as the rock, wide as the earth, high as the 
heavens, where men and women would be free, where labor 
would be without ugliness, where children would be happy. 
This was written on the second page of his mind. Would 
she believe that? 

“ And what is on the third page ? ” she inquired, turning 
to him. 

“ I do not expect to live to write it,” he answered, think- 
ing how very handsome she was. 

“ Do you ever think,” she asked, clasping her hands be- 
hind her, and looking upward to the blue sky, “ what a man 
of your temperament will do with himself when Millennium 
has come ? ” 

“What does it matter?” he demanded, “what becomes 
of men like me when Millennium has come?” 


i88 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ A fine answer,” she said. 

He stopped in his walk, venturing to detain her with a 
respectful touch upon her arm, and began to give vent 
to his dream of the New Jerusalem. “ Do you realize,” he 
demanded at the end of this moving harangue, “ what makes 
the difference between a brilliant, a beautiful, and a spiritual 
creature like you, and the misshapen, hard-faced, comical 
harridan who glowers on the world from her doorway in 
the slums? From the moment you were born, Miss Kings- 
ford, nothing was spared that could give you health and 
strength. As soon as you could observe, you found your- 
self surrounded by beautiful things ; directly your mind was 
able to receive knowledge, everything was done to cultivate 
your intelligence. How much has it cost in pounds, 
shillings, and pence to make you what you are, and how 
much love and devotion were at the back of that financial 
expenditure? Now, look at the other side. Born in pov- 
erty, surrounded by ugliness, sent to the mill before intelli- 
gence is aware of itself, half-starved in body, entirely 
starved in mind and spirit, exposed to the hideous and 
iniquitous influences of the public streets — God in heaven! 
I wonder — yes, I wonder that the women of my class are 
as good and human as they are.” He stopped dead, his 
face full of anger and bitterness. Then he asked her 
quietly, but with an undertone of acerbity : “ Don’t you 
want to share your advantages with those others ? ” 

She replied, continuing their walk : “ What happens to 
your theory when you meet a rich woman who is horrible 
and base, a poor woman who is everything one admires in 
humanity? ” 

“ You cannot legislate by exceptions.” 

“ For myself,” she answered, “ I do not like, I do not 
admire, the average woman I meet in London society half 
as much as I like and admire the peasant woman of Ire- 
land.” 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


189 

He reflected on that. Then, striving to throw off the 
influence of her philosophy, he exclaimed : “ Because some 
people overeat themselves, would you deny bread to the 
hungry?” And he was off again, bidding her face the 
gaunt fact that millions of people in England lived below 
the line of minimum nourishment. 

“ Now tell me,” she asked, with real energy, “ are you 
more anxious to feed those hungry ones, or to take away 
superfluity from the others?” 

“ I am as anxious to do the one as the other,” he replied. 
“ I don’t hide from you,” he added honestly, “ that I am 
an iconoclast. I love to pull down ; I love to punish. Iniq- 
uity makes my blood boil.” 

“ I am quite certain,” she said, very quietly and slowly, 
“ that the country needs such a man as you, but I am 
equally certain that you are wrong.” 

“ Tell me where I am wrong. I am willing to learn. I 
told you that I had the feeling you could teach me.” 

“ Ah, but I am not so rash, not so bold as you. I know 
that I cannot alter a temperament. Mr. Sangster, your 
opinions are yourself. I could no more change you than 
you could convert one of these red roses into a blade of 
grass. But may I tell you where I venture to think you 
are wrong? You are encouraging democracy to look away 
from the center to the circumference ; you are teaching men 
that it is not their wills that punish them, but the conditions 
of their lives. That is why the politician is so dangerous, 
and that is why men like Father Prague lament that the 
Church has failed to make herself the State.” 

He replied : “ How stupid I must have been in my preach- 
ing! Why, my whole effort was to convince you that 
Radicalism is Christianity in action.” 

She turned to him quickly. “ Oh, but religion is so 
quiet ! ” 

Everything he had been ready to pour out in a volume 


i go 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


just a moment before went from his mind. He looked at 
her attentively, without a word. She lowered her eyes. 
“ Don’t you think it is ? ” she asked. 

In the House of Commons or at a crowded and excited 
meeting of working men he would have rapped out a telling 
answer quickly enough. But there was no “ magnetism ” 
in the air of this beautiful rose-garden. Nature was on the 
side of the lady — Nature who teaches us how deadly a thing 
in argument is silence. He was oppressed by the calm, by 
the languid heat, by the scent of the flowers, by the stillness 
of the trees, by the tranquillity of the woman. 

“ I wonder,” he said suddenly, smiling with the satisfac- 
tion of a good idea, “ whether you could have turned St. 
Paul from his fiery crusade ! ” 

She did not raise her eyes. “ Do you think,” she asked 
very quietly, and with extreme gentleness, “ that you could 
have persuaded a greater than St. Paul to be strident? ” 

There was a long pause. She lifted her eyes for a 
moment, looked at him without a smile, then away from 
him. 

“ You conquer me,” he said to her, quickly and earnestly, 
“ by a superior spirituality. I acknowledge that. But that 
superior spirituality has one fault — the fault of all faults 
(may I say it?), the sin of all sins. Yes; it is selfish. It is 
like the spirituality of the fakir in Hinduism, the ascetic in 
Buddhism, the monk in Christianity. While the fakir loses 
his identity in beatific vision, seventy millions of his fellow 
Hindus are pariahs and untouchables; while the monk 
passes from trance to trance, millions of his fellow Chris- 
tians live below the line of poverty. What! would you do 
nothing at all? Would you leave things as they are? 
Would you leave the rich to their own devices and the poor 
to their own miseries?” 

“ I wonder,” she asked, raising her eyes to him, “ whether 
that question was ever put to Christ ! ” Then, still looking 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


191 

at him : “ The Baptist, you remember, sent his disciples 
to ask a very similar question.” 

“ But you do not mean, surely,” he demanded, “ that 
Christ was not a social reformer? Why, some men con- 
sider that He was the first Anarchist! My own view has 
always been that Christianity, profoundly understood and 
logically followed, is Socialism. I came to politics from 
religion. My politics have become my religion. I cannot 
conceive of politics without religion. I assure you, on my 
soul, that the inspiration of my own life is the abso- 
lute conviction that Radicalism represents Christianity in 
action.” 

Before she could reply a vulgar laugh sounded close 
behind them, and a voice exclaimed : “ Ah, we have found 
him at last ! ” 

They turned quickly. Girshel was approaching, with 
Ruth's father at his side. 


X 

Although Girshel did not wink his eye, nor say any- 
thing atrocious, the expression of his face was an insult 
to Ruth Kingsford. He was sufficiently versed in manners 
to know that any elaborate apology for intruding or a 
jocular reference to Adam and Eve in a garden would be 
insufferable, but his nature was such that the vulgar jest 
showed in his face all the same. He glanced mischievously 
from the one to the other, grinning, with that knowing look 
in his eyes which was abhorrent even in playfulness. 

It never occurred to Maurice for a single minute that 
Girshel might perpetrate so hideous an innuendo, but he did 
fear very greatly that the vulgar little Jew would in some 
way smirch him in the sight of Ruth Kingsford. Suppose 
— oh, good heavens ! — suppose he should speak of his “ five 


192 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


and elevenpence halfpennies.” Suppose he should call him 
“ Maurice, old boy.” 

Girshel said : “ I’ve come to congratulate you. I called 
at your home. The wife told me where you had gone, and 
I came on here. Well, it’s what I prophesied and what Eve 
worked for. In a way, I feel that I am to be congratulated, 
too.” He looked up at Sir Edward Kingsford, winked, and 
added : “ Eve pulled the strings for him.” 

At that moment Father Prague and Leonard came 
through the opening in the yew-hedge, and approached the 
group. 

“ I really don’t know what you refer to,” said Maurice, 
rather coldly. 

“ You don’t?” Girshel laughed loudly. “ Go ahead,” 
he said. “ Why, everybody knows it. It will be in half the 
papers to-morrow morning. You aren’t beginning to put 
on Cabinet airs already, are you? Not among friends, 
surely ? ” 

Sir Edward Kingsford smiled. “ I had heard a rumor,” 
he said quietly. 

“ What, in the Cabinet ? ” inquired Leonard. 

“Nonsense, nonsense!” said Maurice firmly, and with 
annoyance. Then, turning on Girshel, he said: “You are 
misinformed, and you have committed a blunder.” 

“ Why, I got it from Tom Fowler at luncheon to-day,” 
snapped Girshel. “ There was a party of us at the club. 
Everybody knew it.” 

Ruth said to her father : “ Has Mr. Sangster’s friend had 
some tea ? ” 

Kingsford replied that Girshel had already refused tea, 
and introduced him to his daughter. 

“You know my name, I expect,” said Girshel, giving 
Ruth’s hand a vigorous shake, “ but not as a politician. Em 
building up that reputation more slowly, in the background, 
behind the scenes — a wire-puller, comprenez? ” 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


193 


Maurice was assuring the others that the rumor of a 
Cabinet appointment was utterly false. Girshel, hearing 
him, turned his back on Ruth, thrust his way into the 
group, and began to tell all the gossip he had heard at the 
club. 

Father Prague went to Ruth’s side, and presently they 
walked away. 

“ I like Mr. Champness,” said the priest. “He is an able 
person, and very modest, not without a dry humor that I 
find very attractive. What do you think of Mr. Sangster? ” 

“ I think he is crude,” replied Ruth, “ but he is one of 
those men who can only do things, and are only interesting 
by the same token, so long as they don’t think. Reflection 
would kill him. But without reflection he is distinctly a 
force. Do you feel that ? ” 

Father Prague replied : “ I really do not know him at all. 
I have heard him speak, I have read some of his articles, 
and I have seen him drinking tea in your garden; but 
I am sure you are right. He is a quivering line of intuitive 
rhetoric. Break up that line, and reduce it to philosophy, 
what would be left? Not even a syllogism. But his friend, 

Ruth, — his friend !” Here Father Prague laughed 

very quietly, glanced at Ruth out of the corners of his eyes, 
and then said with a forlorn expression of face : “ Girshel’s, 
Syrup ! ” 

“ He was telling me rather vigorously,” said Ruth, “ that 
Radicalism is Christianity in action.” At that moment 
the Jew came round the corner. “What a denouement!” 

“ I never thought I should see Mr. Girshel,” said Father 
Prague, with an angry look in his eyes, “ but in rather a sad 
way I have often had him in my thoughts. At one time I 
almost wanted to strangle him.” 

“ You don’t mean that ! Why ? ” 

“ I think I ought to tell Girshel the story ! ” 

“ Well, if it will do him good.” 


194 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“You feel that he needs improvement ? ” 

“ Why do some men send an instant shudder through the 
soul, almost before one has seen them?” 

“ Shall I tell him ? No, it would hurt his feelings.” 

“ What is the story? ” 

“ It concerns a boy in Derby. He was one of my favor- 
ites, and I was bringing him on, hoping to make a priest of 
him. He worked in a factory, and supported his mother 
and two sisters, one of whom was an invalid. They lived 
in the poorest quarter of the town, but more respectable 
people and a neater home one could find nowhere. Well, 
the boy was delicate, and began to get ill. Some foolish 
neighbors recommended Girshel’s Syrup — a swindle shown 
up by the medical authorities again and again. Everything 
was sacrificed to buy this dreadful stuff. All the savings 
soon went; then ornaments, then furniture, and presently 
linen. I tried all I could to dissuade them, but in vain. 
They regarded me as in league with the doctors. At last 
the boy collapsed, and had to take to his bed. The mother 
wrote a beseeching letter to the address on the bottle of 
Girshel’s Syrup. She showed me the answer. All they had 
to do was to go on with the Syrup, increasing the dose. 
He lay in a little dark bedroom at the side of the house, 
with nothing but a blank wall to look at. I used to sit with 
him every day. They brought the medicine at the proper 
time, and I watched him gulping it down — the poor, white, 
emaciated, dying boy! One day, as I entered his room, I 
noticed that it seemed brighter. He observed my look of 
surprise, and raised a feeble hand, pointing to the window. 
‘ Well, that’s an improvement,’ I said. The blank wall was 
painted white. ‘ It’s brighter in here,’ he whispered, ‘ but it 
hurts my eyes when the sun’s on it.’ When I came next 
day the whole of the white space was occupied with huge 
letters announcing ‘ Girshel’s Syrup cures everything.* 
Well, that’s the story. He died with the lie looking at him 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


195 


through the window. That was what he saw every time 
he raised his eyes.” 

For some moments Ruth said nothing. They walked 
towards the house in silence, for Father Prague had re- 
vived memories which busied his thoughts. “ I wonder,” 
said Ruth, “ if any of this poor boy’s money has gone to 
swell the funds of Christianity in action ? ” Then, slowing 
in her walk and turning round, she added : “ No, I don’t 
think you could tell him that story. You might, however, 
write to him about it ; but I feel as if I must, I really must 
tell that story to our demagogue.” 

“ Oh, you couldn’t ! ” 

“ Yes, I want to rescue religion from politics.” 

He stopped. “ My dear Ruth,” he exclaimed, “ what 
do you mean by that? Why, our whole effort, surely, is 
to Christianize politics ! ” 

“ You can’t do that.” 

“ Are you sure ? My own feeling is that the future of 
religion is alliance with democracy. I’m too much of a 
theologian to be certain, too little of a politician to be 
dogmatic; but one of my dreams lies there. I want re- 
ligion to be the inspiration of our national life, and politics 
the expression of that inspiration.” 

“ But when religion is the inspiration of national life, 
will there be any need for politics ? ” 

“ Certainly, for politics must change the social evil in 
the world ! ” 

“ Do you mean that you can overcome evil by Act of 
Parliament ? ” 

“ I mean that the State can circumscribe evil, that it can 
make it exceedingly difficult for a man to do evil. Girshel, 
for example. A righteous State would wipe him out.” 

“ Aren’t you speaking of morality ? ” 

“ But isn’t morality an action of the religious conscience ? 
That is all I mean by Christianizing politics.” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


196 

“ A moral Girshel could help you ? ” 

“ Certainly.” 

“ Any moral Jew could help you? ” 

“ Why not?” 

“ But religion is Christianity ? ” 

“ Christianity is widening its borders. Why do you want 
to restrict it, Ruth? Is that not one of the dangers of the 
Vatican? Isn’t that why democracy in Europe is rising 
against the Church ? I don’t like you to be rigid, even in a 
theory. I can’t believe you are, either. Come, you are not, 
are you? Agree with me now, like a good obedient girl, 
that religion in the past has been too exclusive, too aris- 
tocratic, too conservative. Suppose the Church had spent 
herself through the long centuries when she was fight- 
ing for temporal power in teaching democracy the reli- 
gion of her Master. Why, earth had been Paradise by 
now.” 

She put her hand through his arm, and walked him 
forward. “ Well,” she declared, “ for a clever man, for the 
famous writer of brilliant books, for the eminent champion 
of theological dogma against the theories of a partial 
science, that is the most boneless, rickety argument I ever 
heard in my life ! Dear man, you have destroyed yourself ! 
Why, the Church’s strife for temporal power was a political 
strife, the very strife you wish her to renew to-day, and 
by your own showing it was a failure. Come, I want the 
Church to-day to be doing what you wish she had been 
doing all through those wasted centuries. I want her to 
be teaching. To strive, to oppose, to wage war? — no, a 
hundred times, no! Think for a moment. Can you con- 
template the Church as a military power? Do you like 
the idea of trumpets, and banners, and swords, in connec- 
tion with the religion of the heart? Does it thrill you or 
shock you to think of the Little Flock marching to war in 
stiff uniforms, the heads held high, the bugles blowing, the 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


197 


flags fluttering, their weapons shining in the sun? You 
know it shocks you; you know it does. People who speak 
like that, men of the mold of Mr. Sangster, think of re- 
ligion as if it were morality. They always forget,” she 
added quietly, “ the Cross.” 

He was about to answer when the others appeared. 

Maurice detached himself from Girshel, and hastened 
to Ruth. “ I am obliged to go, Miss Kingsford,” he said 
quietly, as if he had much to say, and would say it out of 
Girshel’s hearing. “ I wish our conversation had not been 
interrupted. I want to know whether you will let me renew 
it some day. May Leonard bring me again ? ” 

“ I want to say something more,” she answered, “ before 
you go.” She walked witfi him slowly in advance of the 
others, turning on to the lawn and letting them go by. Then 
she stopped and looked at him. “ As it happens,” she said, 
“ interruption came at the very moment when I was going 
to ask you if I might preach. I feel very keenly about 
something you had just said. There isn’t time for preach- 
ing now, but may I ask you, because I admire you and be- 
cause I see that you can so easily be a power for good in 
the difficult future, to remember what we were saying and 
how we were interrupted ? ” 

He tried to follow her meaning. “ I’m afraid,” he said, 
“ I don’t understand.” 

“You were telling me that Radicalism is Christianity in 
action.” 

“ Yes ” 

“ And at that moment Mr. Girshel came to congratulate 
you ” 

She saw how his face whitened; she saw swift pain in 
his eyes, pain and vexation, and she saw annoyance harden 
at his mouth. She hastened to say, leaning a little towards 
him and speaking with extreme gentleness : “ There are 
Jews on my side as well. I don’t feel that Jews should 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


198 

be excluded from politics. In business matters, in the 
sphere of morals, Jews can serve the State as well as Chris- 
tians. My father says that some of the finest and noblest 
men he knows in London are Jews. But all this helps me 
to see that politics must not be confounded in any way with 
religion. Moralize politics, Mr. Sangster, moralize them 
as hard as ever you can. You are a fighter, a splendid 
fighter, and morals is the sphere of the fighter ; but religion 
ought not to appear on the platform. Religion,” she added, 
drawing in her breath quickly, and speaking with a sudden 
accession of pride which made him think her more beautiful 
than ever — “ religion should never appear in the arena, ex- 
cept as a martyr.” 

The voice of Girshel came to them, calling Maurice. 
They looked up, and saw him standing by the house beckon- 
ing. He had his watch in his hand. 

Maurice regarded him for a moment, and then turned 
his back. “ I can’t see your point of view,” he said. “You 
won’t think me so dense as to decide that I have missed 
your point of view simply because I disagree with your con- 
clusion. There are, indeed, moments in my life when I 
feel as you do. In the past I had one ambition — to be a 
preacher. But I want to tell you this : Religion is what the 
comfortable classes fear more than anything else . Religion 
is destined to destroy them. They know it. I have come to 
this belief ; it is the center of my life. And do you know 
why religion must arm herself, and come out of the cloister 
and enter the arena, not as a martyr, but as a conqueror? 
Because she is opposed by the world. The world forces her 
to fight.” 

He put out his hand, and she took it without a smile, 
almost abstractedly, thinking of what he had said. 

“ As for this Girshel,” he added, catching sight of the 
little monkey with vexation as he advanced towards the 
house, “ he can be used as one uses a servant.” 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


199 

“ I wonder,” she inquired, “ if you have ever had time 
to read the lives of the mystics ? ” 

“ No,” he answered with decision. “ I began with 
Luther, and I have gone on following the line of the re- 
formers.” 

“You will never have time now,” she said, with a smile. 

“ I am a politician,” he replied. “ I’m afraid not.” 

“ It is very difficult for me to think of religion without 
the mystics,” she said. “ Almost as difficult as thinking 
of mysticism in the House of Commons.” 

“ My dear boy,” laughed Girshel, “ if you don’t come at 
once I shall pull you.” He caught hold of Maurice’s arm, 
and held him while he offered his hand to Ruth. “If he 
is like this now,” he said, “ what will he be like when he is 
in the Cabinet ? ” 


XI 

For a long time after his first meeting with her Maurice 
was haunted by Ruth Kingsford. He was easily able to 
refute her arguments when he got away from her, but he 
could not rid himself of the impression she had made upon 
him. This impression was the distinct and vital impression 
of a very first-rate personality. He thought of her as one 
superior to himself, and not only intellectually superior. 
She was superior to him as a human being. 

It savaged him to think that Girshel had spoken to his 
mother with a freedom and a patronage which he dared 
not employ in the case of Ruth Kingsford. The Jew had 
treated his mother as a comical old body, to be chaffed, to be 
winked at, to be humored, and put on one side. And yet, 
compare his mother’s life with the life of Ruth Kingsford ! 
In God’s sight, which stood the higher? 

He said to himself : “ My mother has lived the life of a 


200 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


servant. She has done all the hard and laborious work that 
a servant does. In addition, she has kept house on a pittance, 
she has brought up a large family, and she has shared in 
the life of the chapel. The wives of small shopkeepers are 
servants. They are cook, housemaid, parlormaid, and 
mother. And Girshel takes liberties with such a woman as 
my mother, just as the grocer’s man, the butcher’s man, 
takes liberties with servants at the back-door. But Miss 
Kingsford, he was respectful to her! Why? Why should 
he be more respectful to her than to my mother? What 
has she done? Bred in luxury, supplied with everything to 
make life easy and beautiful, from childhood to now she 
has never soiled her hands or suffered one ache from labor. 
She is one of the drones. She is clever because she has had 
masters provided for her, and nothing else to do but study. 
She is beautiful because she has never toiled, never suffered, 
never known the bitterness of poverty and the anxiety 
of a family. My mother is a thousand times the greater 
woman.” 

But he found it so hard to convince himself that his 
mother really was a superior being to Ruth Kingsford, 
that he escaped from the horror of disloyal thoughts by 
fastening his rage upon Girshel. 

On their walk home he had told the Jew very sternly and 
sharply that it was an outrageous thing to follow him to 
the house of strangers and burst in with an absurd rumor. 
“ I want you to understand,” he said, “ that I do not regard 
you as my benefactor. You are assuming a relationship 
which I not only will not recognize, but which I decisively 
repudiate. I do work for you, and you pay me for it. In 
exchange for your money you get my labor. Such a con- 
nection does not establish you as my patron.” 

And Girshel had replied: “You wouldn’t dare to talk 
like this, old boy, if you weren’t certain of the Cabinet! 
Now I know it’s a fact. I congratulate you again. But be 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


201 


careful. You’ll need me a long time yet. Suppose the 
Government goes out ! How will you manage then ? Your 
family is growing, dear boy. It will be more expensive for 
you every year. You’d better stick to the man who first 
pulled the strings for you.” 

They went to the office of the London Herald , and 
Maurice was able to convince Tom Fowler that the rumor 
of a Cabinet appointment was entirely without foundation. 
“ I was sounded late last night,” he told the editor, “ by 
someone who had no real authority as to whether I would 
accept a very minor office. That is all, I assure you. There 
is nothing in the rumor beyond that.” 

“ And you refused?” Tom Fowler asked. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Ah ! ” exclaimed Fowler and Girshel together. The 
Jew looked at the editor and winked. 

When they left the newspaper office, Girshel put his arm 
through Maurice’s and said to him : “ Perhaps we had better 
have a little quiet talk. Things are maturing rather quicker 
than I expected. We’ll go to the club.” 

“ No,” replied Maurice ; “ I’ve got work to do. I’m going 
home.” 

“ Come and see me at my office, then,” said the Jew 
rather peremptorily. “ Come to-morrow morning at twelve 
o’clock. I could see you then for half an hour.” 

“ I shall be too busy. Besides, what is there to say ? ” 

“ I don’t like your manner, my friend. Are you trying 
to shake me off? ” 

“ I very much resent your behavior this afternoon.” 

“ Let’s understand each other. You had better come to 
the club, after all. IPS no use playing a game of cross- 
purposes.” 

“ I am going home.” 

“All right, then.” Girshel stopped a hansom. “We’ll 
go together.” 


202 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


In the cab he said to Maurice : “ How do we stand ? Let’s 
be honest. You want to be rid of me, is that it?” 

“ I want you to mend your manners, that’s all.” 

The cabman whipped his horse, which was one of those 
little hog-maned, prick-eared cab-horses familiar in the days 
of the hansom. It quickened its even trot in response to 
the whip without a movement of bad temper. The bell on 
its cheek-strap sent a cheerful music through the empty 
Sunday streets. 

“ Shall I tell you what you mean ? ” demanded Girshel. 
“ You mean that your Radical soul is cooling! Liberalism 
baits its hook with office, and good-by, say you, to Radical- 
ism. My manners, hey! What about your morals f Ha! 
Do you think I can’t read you ? My friend, that’s my busi- 
ness. That’s how I spend my day ; that’s how I make my 
money — reading men. Look, I’ve been deceived in you. 
What a fool I must have been, you think. Not so quick! 
If you play me false, dear sir, I’ll spend every penny I’ve 
got to drive you out of politics. How? Do you think it 
would be difficult? Chut! I could make your reputation 
smell like a bad herring from one end of the country to the 
other. Now, that’s me. I play fair. I conceal nothing. 
You’ll find me honest, mightily honest, and no assassin. 
Don’t fear a stab in the back. That’s not my way. It will 
be a blow in the face, an open blow, and not till you’re 
standing on guard. My boy, you’ve written enough in my 
paper to hang you as a Liberal. Don’t forget that! And 
the man who keeps the files is a rich man — a man who can 
afford to run two and three candidates against you in every 
constituency you go for. Why, I could break you as easily, 
as cheaply, as I could break an egg.” 

Maurice made no answer. He was leaning forward, his 
arms on the doors of the cab, his eyes gazing ahead into 
the gloom of an empty street between the two lines of 
lamps. 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


203 


“Well, what do you say?” demanded Girshel. 

No answer being vouchsafed, the Jew repeated his 
question with greater assurance, striking his companion’s 
arm. 

“ Go to hell ! ” answered Maurice, without turning his 
head or shifting his position. 

He said it slowly, quietly, and with a perfect self-posses- 
sion. One might have thought he had been used all his life 
to language of a like violence, but in truth it was the strong- 
est expression that had ever escaped him. 

Long afterwards he remembered that while the Jew 
was addressing him and threatening him, and really con- 
vincing him that his future was hopelessly in Girshel’s 
hands, the thought came to him that the bell on the horse 
had caught the sound of the little bell on his father’s shop- 
door ; and it seemed to him then that he was sick of politics, 
sick of journalism, sick of his struggle to earn money for 
his family, and that he would give all he possessed to be at 
home with his mother — his mother, who lived the life of a 
servant. 

But as soon as the petulant exclamation had escaped him 
he was filled with horror. His eyes dilated, his body turned 
cold. He said to himself : “ I am a sinner ! ” and the doc- 
trine of his fervorous youth, the doctrine of Entire Sancti- 
fication, rose up before him like a rebukeful ghost whose eyes 
are wet with tears. He did not change his attitude. He 
did not consider that now he had really ruined himself with 
Girshel. He only thought : “ What I must be in my heart 
to use an expression like that ! ” 

Girshel touched his arm. “I’ll give you five minutes,” 
he said. Then, after a pause : “ I don’t want to take advan- 
tage of your bad temper. I’m not like that. But I’ll put 
you a question, and I’ll give you five minutes to consider 
your answer.” He pulled out his watch, held it forward for 
the light of the lamps to fall upon the dial, and concluded: 


204 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ Now, is that your last word to me — your last word to me 
— that I am to go to hell ? ” 

The cabman’s whip came down sharply on the little horse, 
and again it quickened its even pace without resentment. 
Maurice noticed how rhythmically the harness bumped on 
the animal’s back, how steadily it trotted, how perpetually 
the ears moved backwards and forwards, almost as if they 
were claws. 

They were climbing a slight hill. There were tram lines 
in the center of the road. At every corner was a public 
house, with a crowd of men and women loafing at the 
doors. Occasionally, they passed a church or chapel, from 
which the congregations were emptying — dark figures 
against the background of the bright doorways. 

Girshel put away his watch, and pulled a cigar-case from 
his pocket. He was looking about him, no grin on his face, 
a malicious evil light in his eyes. He bit the end off his 
cigar, spat it out of his mouth, and felt in his pockets for 
a match-box. 

“ Don’t be in any hurry,” he said, with the cigar in his 
mouth. “ You’ve got to decide, remember, whether you’ll 
travel with me or without me.” He struck a match and 
lighted his cigar. “ You’ve got to make up your mind 
whether you’ll have me fighting with you or against you,” 
he concluded, throwing away the match. 

Maurice heard what he said, and was conscious of the 
smell of the cigar smoke, which he thought pleasant and 
soothing. But he was thinking of the people round the 
public houses, noisy, hilarious crowds, composed for the 
greater part of young clerks and women of the street. He 
was interested in one case by a violent dispute at the doors 
of a tavern, where six or seven women were quarreling very 
violently among themselves, while a number of tipsy young 
men, striving to pacify them, only seemed to make matters 
worse. Maurice had the feeling that he would like to stop 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


205 


and see the end of this brawl. A week later he remembered 
it because of a murder which shocked London, and wondered 
if the young victim had been among those drunken women 
clawing at each other in the streets. 

He thought to himself as the cab swung through the noisy 
streets : “ How are we going to alter all this ? Does demo- 
cracy want to be better ? ” And this reflection set him 
thinking about Ruth Kingsford. 

All of a sudden he turned to Girshel, looked at him very 
hard, and asked : “ What was it I said to you ? ” 

Girshel met his gaze. “ You told me,” he said, working 
his lips rather savagely, “ to go to hell.” 

“ Then why the devil haven’t you gone there? ” demanded 
Maurice, jerking his face so close to the Jew’s that he 
could feel the heat from the cigar. 

Something in this action, something in his eyes, made 
the Jew draw back hastily. 

Maurice followed him round. “ Get out of this cab,” he 
said sharply, and raised his hand to the trap-door. “ You 
blackmailer ! ” he ended savagely. Then to the cabman : 
“ Stop!” 

The cab skidded on the tram-lines for a moment, so that 
Girshel was thrown against Maurice. Then it drew to the 
side of the pavement, and came to a standstill. 

“ You have taken a liberty,” said Maurice, “ for which I 
will never forgive you. You have endeavored to intimidate 
me, for which I will punish you. You are a Jew, and the 
son of a Jew — a rogue, a swindler, and a swaggering little 
cad! Do your worst. I’ll smash you to powder.” 

Girshel replied: “You are in a bad temper. You don’t 
mean what you say. To-morrow you will be sorry for it.” 
He opened the doors of the cab. “ Shall I go, or will you 
think over it while I sit at your side for the rest of the 
journey? I don’t want to judge a hasty man. I am not 
that sort of fellow.” 


206 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ Fve done with you ! ” replied Maurice. 

“ All right. But you have only done with me for the 
present.” Girshel put his cigar in his mouth, got up, and 
turned to Maurice as he stood, unnecessarily crouched up, 
under the reins. “ After all, this is my cab,” he said. “ Don’t 
you think it would be more fitting if you got out? ” 

Maurice caught him by the arm, and pulled him roughly 
into the cab. At the same moment he was on his feet. He 
jumped out of the vehicle, and walked away without an- 
other word. 

When he got home, he found his wife in a state of great 
anxiety about one of the children, who had caught a very 
bad cold two days before, and whose temperature had gone 
up to 102°. The doctor had been in the afternoon, and 
was to return later in the evening. 

It was difficult for Maurice to collect his thoughts. He 
said : “ I expect it will be all right,” and went with her to 
the room where the child lay. Phoebe did not observe any- 
thing unusual in his appearance; she was too preoccupied 
with this domestic catastrophe. Maurice went to the cot 
where the child lay in feverish unrest. The bedclothes 
were kicked off, the little nightshirt was pulled up, the 
child’s blazing cheeks contrasted violently with the white 
body, the eyes were glazed with delirium. Phoebe uttered 
some soothing words, and leaned over the cot to pull down 
the nightshirt and draw a sheet over the child. But the 
child pouted and frowned, gave a little cry of petulant 
anger, kicking down the sheet, pulling up his nightshirt, 
and rolling his head vexatiously on the pillow. Maurice 
bent over the cot, and put his hand to the child’s head. He 
was startled by the fiery heat. The child gazed at him 
with a wild gratitude; caught hold of his hand, and drew 
it to the side of its head, pressing it there close to the neck. 
Then, when the cold hand had become hot, and could no 
more comfort it, the child flung it off, moaned piteously, 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


207 


tossed passionately from side to side, and, before they 
could prevent it, banged its head fiercely against the rails 
of the cot. 

“ Oh, Maurice, Maurice ! ” Phoebe whispered, clutching 
at his arm. “What are we to do? I’m afraid — I’m so 
afraid ! ” 

He replied : “ The doctor will be coming soon.” 

She went to the dressing-table, emptied some eau-de- 
Cologne on a handkerchief, and returned to the cot, bathing 
the child’s brow and pressing the handkerchief behind the 
ears. The nurse entered the room with a cooling draught. 
“ I’m sure he’s more feverish,” Phoebe whispered to her. 
The nurse nodded : “ Yes, the temperature is going up.” 

Maurice went downstairs to his room. He could do 
nothing to help. He lighted the gas in his study, and sat 
down in a chair by the fireplace, wondering what he should 
do to provide for his family. 

In half an hour Phoebe came to him. She was very 
white and trembling. “ Maurice,” she said, slipping down 
on her knees at his side, “ I want you to pray with me. 
I’m frightened ! ” She burst into tears, and pressed her 
face to his arm, sobbing. He laid a hand on her hair, told 
her not to worry, said that the doctor would surely be able 
to put matters right. Children, he assured her, were often 
like this. They talked for several minutes, and then Phoebe 
dried her eyes, saying : “ I will try to be brave, but pray 
with me, Maurice. I want you to ask God to spare our 
darling’s life.” 

He replied : “ Let us wait till the doctor has been. I 
don’t feel as if I could pray properly just now.” 

“ You are afraid he will die ! ” she cried piteously, gazing 
at him with terror. 

“ No, it isn’t that. Later, Phoebe — later. When we are 
in our room together.” 

The doctor was able to comfort Phoebe. The fever, he 


208 the house of deceit 

said, was running its natural course. There was no need 
for anxiety, none whatever. At the same time, if Phoebe 
would like to have a trained nurse in the house, he would 
send for one. But Phoebe wanted to do everything for 
the child herself. 

When the doctor had gone, the servant came to remind 
Phoebe that supper had been ready for a long time. “ I 
can eat nothing,” she answered; but she insisted that 
Maurice should go to the dining-room. He ate a little 
food, and returned to his study. 

It was after midnight when he went upstairs to bed. 
The door of the child’s room was half open; a table stood 
outside with a tray and bottles; a night-light was burning 
on the chest of drawers in a saucer of water; he could see 
Phoebe sitting motionless beside the cot; the noise of the 
child’s subdued moaning came to him very clearly. He 
looked at Phoebe, and she bowed her head to show that she 
saw him, placing a finger to her lips, as if to warn him 
against waking the invalid. He passed on and went to 
his room. He remembered that he had promised to pray 
with his wife ; but he felt that he could not even pray for 
himself. 

Early on the following morning Phoebe came to him 
with the good news that the child was much better. She 
brought him a cup of tea. It was a beautiful fresh morn- 
ing, but the sun coming in at his window, and Phoebe 
entering with this excellent piece of news, did not give 
Maurice any lively feeling of relief or happiness. As he 
sat up in bed, drinking his tea, and looking at Phoebe, who 
was fresh and cheerful in spite of her long vigil, he thought 
to himself, “ I have made a fool of myself.” 

“ Something is worrying you ? ” she inquired, after a 
moment. There was just a touch of disappointment in 
this remark. 

“No; I assure you. Why, what makes you ask?” 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 209 

“ You don’t seem to be very glad of my good news; that 
was all ! ” 

“I am very glad indeed; of course I am. But I felt 
certain it would be all right; I told you so last night.” 

A servant entered the room with his letters. He looked 
through the envelopes hastily, selected one in Girshel’s 
handwriting, opened it, and said to his wife : “ I had a 
row yesterday with Mr. Girshel. I’m not going to work 
for him any more.” 

“ I’m glad of that,” she answered ; “ but what will you 
do instead?” 

He did not answer. The letter was very brief. It merely 
inquired whether Maurice intended to send any further 
contributions to the paper. “ There is no need for you to 
do so,” the letter concluded, “as I have another Member 
of Parliament ready to continue the Diary.” 

He put the letter aside, glanced again at the other 
envelopes, and said, “ I must get up.” Phoebe went to 
the bathroom to turn on the water for him. 

Maurice left the house immediately after breakfast. 
He called upon the philosophical Radical whom he had 
met at Ravenstruther’s, and with whom he was now on a 
very friendly footing. They lunched together at the Re- 
form Club, and walked across St. James’s Park to the 
House of Commons. 

At seven o’clock Phoebe heard a bawling voice coming 
up the street. She went to the window and looked out. 
A boy was running along the pavement with newspapers 
under his arm and a placard over his legs. She saw the 
words, “ Defeat of the Government,” and wondered what 
that might mean to Maurice. 

Girshel did not hear the news till nine o’clock. He was 
at his home in Finchley Road, with a journalist who made a 
modest income as a political humorist. 

“ We’ll print those extracts and publish them as a 


210 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


pamphlet ! ” he chuckled. “ We’ll issue five hundred thou- 
sand of them, free. Every soul in Bursby shall have a 
couple. And we’ll call it ‘ Bursby’s Radical Member : 
What He Has Said.’ ” 

“ And under that,” said the journalist, “ put a big black 
question mark, followed by, ' What Has He Done?’” 

“Yes, that’s not bad. What Has He Done! But we 
must have pictures. I want pictures on all the walls — 
comic ones, colored comic pictures. The thing is to show 
him up as a humbug, as a man who got into the House as 
a Radical, and is now blacking the boots of the Liberals, 
sucking up to ’em for office. Some fellow could make a 
picture of a soldier sneaking off to join the enemy. Call it 
The Deserter. That’s a name that will stick. Yes, I like that 
— The Deserter. Bursby’s back would go up. Bursby’s the 
kind of place that hates a traitor more than anything else.” 

“ How about a huge poster showing him in the character 
of Pecksniff?” inquired the journalist, opening his eyes in 
admiration of his own suggestion. 

“ No good at all. Bursby knows nothing about Peck- 
sniff. No; what we want is plain, hard-hitting common 
sense. Keep off literature and all that sort of thing. I 
don’t mind caricatures of advertisements; people know 
them ; but art and literature — no good at all.” 

They were interrupted by the arrival of Girshel’s editor. 

“ Heard the news ? ” he asked. 

“ What news ? ” demanded Girshel. 

“ Government’s defeated ! ” 

Girshel sprang to his feet, laughing delightedly. “Is 
it true — really true ? ” 

“ Absolutely.” 

“Then a Tory will get in for Bursby!” said the Jew, 
rubbing his hands. 

“ Sangster made a smashing speech ; pulverized the Old 
Man ; broke him all to pieces ” 


MARRIAGE AND FACTS 


21 1 


Girshel’s jaw dropped. “ What do you say? ” 

“ The Government was beaten by Sangster,” announced 
the editor. “ He opposed them over Egypt ; said the coun- 
try was sick of their broken promises; told the Old Man 
that he had done nothing for the people, nothing that 
made a difference to their lives, for thirty years — he called 
them the Thirty Years’ War. He said straight out that 
while the Old Man had been filibustering all over the world 
and tinkering at the Constitution at home, working himself 
up to a white heat over the job and professing to be the 
people’s friend — the holy apostle of peace, retrenchment, 
and reform — the state of the poor had been getting rapidly 
and terribly worse. My word, he really smashed the Old 
Man ! There’s one passage in the speech about slums that 
beats anything Sangster ever said. He quoted something 
the Old Man had said about the cry of the Christians in 
Macedonia, and told him that if he would curb his rhetoric 
and listen for a moment he might hear the wailing of little 
children in English slums, starving for food, dying of fever, 
beating their heads against the walls of cellars and dog- 
holes. It was a real crusher, and no mistake! He took 
thirty-three Liberals with him into the lobby.” 

Girshel turned to the humorous journalist. “ We’re 
beaten, too,” he said. 

“ I’m afraid we are,” answered the humorist. 

“ For the present,” said Girshel. 

The Tories won the General Election. Maurice Sangster 
was returned by an overwhelming majority for Bursby, 
and became immediately one of their deadliest critics. The 
retirement of the famous Liberal Prime Minister brought 
Maurice into greater prominence, but he remained on the 
cross-benches, and the Opposition Leaders, though they 
profited by his attacks on the Government, deplored his 
methods and his Radicalism. 









PART III 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

I 

You will observe a notable change in Maurice Sangster. 
The razor has swept away every vestige of hair from his 
face ; the scissors have brought his dark hair to a reason- 
able brevity. He wears his clothes with an air; he is less 
feverish in his movements ; he has acquired the deep think- 
ing, the long reflecting, and the rather sad austerity of a 
Cabinet Minister. 

Certainly he has broadened his mind. 

If you were to see him in his study at night — his new 
house is in Kensington — sitting at ease, almost lounging 
one might say, with two or three influential men of the 
party, smoking a cigarette, drinking whisky-and-soda, and 
occasionally making use of a slang word to humanize his 
vigorous opinions, you would admit that he has advanced 
from a hot-headed youth to a middle-age of orthodox so- 
briety. And the change would not seem to you so violent 
as it appears in a written statement if you listened to his 
conversation, and realized the strength of the influences 
which have been brought to bear upon him. He is full of 
generosity, and laughs quite pleasantly and indulgently with- 
out blinking his eyelids, when he speaks of his early 
enthusiasm as a politician. He is no longer a visionary. 
Circumstance has made him a practical man of affairs. 

He is now a statesman — the Home Secretary in a Gov- 
ernment which has to be very careful what it does in 

213 


214 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


rousing the wrath of vested interests. He has conquered 
the Whigs, and is the Radical master of his party ; but he 
is a statesman, and perceives that while passionate speeches 
in the country are permissible — nay, even useful and profit- 
able — violent legislation in the House of Commons would 
be perilous. He is biding his time. He has lost nothing 
of his sincerity. More earnest and convinced Radical never 
held Cabinet rank in a Victorian Government. He says 
everything when he tells his friends, “ What we have to do 
is to educate democracy.” 

Almost as great a statesman as Maurice Sangster is 
Phoebe his wife. 

When she discovered that the dismissal of Girshel meant 
a very diminished income, and when she perceived that 
Maurice’s political struggle could not possibly be combined 
with a money-earning journalistic career, like a hen alarmed 
for the safety of her chickens she gathered her little family 
under her wings, and set herself to defend them against 
the hardships and cruelties of a materialistic world. How 
she worked for her children, how she economized in her 
housekeeping, how she denied herself many things which 
custom had rendered almost essential to her existence — 
this would be as wearisome to tell as it was difficult for 
Phoebe to accomplish. 

She never forgot the white and haggard face, the fever- 
ish eyes, and the frowning brow of her husband when she 
went to him in the early days of this great struggle, telling 
him that the tradesmen’s books, hitherto paid every week, 
were now a month overdue. The poor fellow was wrestling 
at that time with an enormous correspondence ; he was 
making speeches all over the country; he was in constant 
conference with the Radicals of the party; and he was 
directing a tremendous campaign in his own constituency. 
He looked up from his writing-table at Phoebe, asked her 
to repeat what she had said, turned very white, passed his 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


215 


hand over his forehead, looked away from her, frowned, 
got up from his chair, and replied : “ They must wait. It 
will be all right in a few weeks. I must do some writing. 
In a month or two I shall be earning money.” 

And there was another occasion which Phoebe never for- 
got. One of the children had written her first letter, and 
this letter, planned by mother and child, was addressed to 
Maurice. Phoebe, very proud and happy, took the child, 
carrying this wonderful letter, to see Maurice in his study. 
They found him at his table, answering correspondents on 
a pile of postcards. The child broke free from her mother 
directly the door was open, ran to her father, and pressed 
the letter against his body, crying out : “ I wrote it all by 
myself! Mother didn't hold my hand! It’s for you; I 
wroted it for you ! ” 

He could not understand what this invasion meant. His 
head was hot, his fingers aching, his whole mind was con- 
centrated on a General Election. He looked up at Phoebe, 
and said : “ I really must not be interrupted. What is it ? 
What is it? You see how busy I am. Can’t it wait till 
lunch-time ? I do beg you to see that I am not disturbed in 
the morning.” And as they went away, very sorrowfully, 
he called out : “ You see, it’s a matter of life or death to 
us that I should carry this thing through.” 

Phoebe decided, after a long conversation with her 
brother Leonard, who very cheerfully and insistently lent 
her fifty pounds for immediate necessities, that she should 
go to her father for financial assistance. They agreed that 
Maurice had better not be told; and they also agreed that 
the best way of approach to old Humphry Champness 
would be through Aunt Mildred. And so Phoebe told Aunt 
Mildred, on one of her regular visits, how matters stood 
with the Sangster household, and Aunt Mildred decided to 
take action that very night. 

None of them knew how rich old Champness was; Jig- 


2l6 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


gens did not know; his partners did not know; only his 
bankers were aware that the financier had a capital of nearly 
half a million very wisely invested all over the civilized 
and uncivilized world. But Aunt Mildred, whose house- 
hold expenditure never exceeded five hundred a year, knew 
that her brother could well afford to make his children an 
allowance ; and she felt, above everything else, that it was a 
dreadful state of things for father and children to exist in 
a condition of veiled hostility. 

It fortuned that when she approached the old man he 
was in a very bad humor. It seemed that he had been run 
into and nearly overturned that morning by his own secre- 
tary, Christopher Jiggens, who, issuing suddenly from a 
tavern in Old Broad Street, turning his head to shout a last 
cheerful word to the friends he had left drinking at the 
bar, had bumped right into Mr. Champness. Jiggens was 
now a heavyweight. He had lost the distinguished appear- 
ance of his earlier days, and looked more like a retired 
policeman than a cavalry officer. His face was red and 
fattish; his shoulders were heavy; his paunch was stoutly 
and aggressively middle-aged. It is one of the misfortunes 
of a life devoted to money-making that the elegance of 
youth, the fine swaggering dash of early manhood, and the 
distinguished appearance of later years, merge eventually 
into an unmistakable commercialism. Jiggens still wore 
fine clothes; but they were now disastrously too tight for 
him ; moreover, the dust of the City of London seemed not 
only to settle on them, but to work its way into them; his 
very hat had a soiled appearance. 

Old Champness continued his way full of wrath and in- 
dignation. He began to suspect his secretary. Jiggens, 
to save the old man, and before he quite realized who it 
was he had bumped into, had caught him affectionately in 
his arms, and had laughed his apologies full in his victim’s 
face — apologies which reeked of whisky. “ He drinks ; at 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


217 

eleven o’clock in the morning; and with jobbers — low job- 
bers,” said the old man to himself; “I’ll warrant he’s a 
gambler.” 

That afternoon he had a stern encounter with Mr. Jig- 
gens. He discovered that Jiggens was carrying over a 
number of highly speculative shares, shares that only a 
fool would dabble with; and this fact, added to his dis- 
covery that Jiggens was in the habit of drinking in wine 
bars, put the old man into a state of great irascibility. He 
told Jiggens very roundly that he was a fool, and said he 
would think over the matter. 

Now, you might conjecture that Aunt Mildred could not 
have approached her tyrannical brother in a worse hour. 
On the contrary, it was the most propitious hour she could 
have chosen. As soon as she broached the subject, and as 
soon as he perceived that Phoebe was in real financial diffi- 
culties, old Champness felt a deep wave of satisfaction 
passing over his heart, washing away all memory of 
Jiggens. 

“ So our politician is not earning a thousand a year any 
longer?” he inquired. “Poor fellow! I’m sorry for him. 
He must feel his position keenly. A conscience like 

that ! But we must help him. I like your idea that 

he should not be told. That is wise ; wise and proper. We 
must spare his feelings. No; he must certainly not be 
told.” 

Phoebe was received into the paternal bosom. Perhaps 
the old man was genuinely touched by her broken words, 
her troubled face, her tears and her sobs. Perhaps the 
abandonment of the middle-aged mother revived in his mind 
memories of her childhood, when he would take her on 
his knees, kiss away her tears, and comfort her with kind' 
words. He certainly fondled her, kissed her forehead, 
patted her arm, and assured her very generously that he 
would see she came to no harm. But it is almost certain 


218 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


that the allowance he made to her — an allowance of fifteen 
hundred pounds a year — was dictated by vengeance. There 
is no question that he hated Maurice Sangster very sav- 
agely, and longed above most things in life to humiliate 
him. He would have liked to break him as a politician, 
but this being beyond his powers, he took a delight in pro- 
viding for him in secret. Again and again he cautioned 
Phoebe against disclosing the source of her supplies. 

“ His feelings must not be hurt,” he kept saying. “ He 
is very high-minded and sensitive ; he is so busy he will not 
know whether the bills are paid or not ; say nothing to him 
on the subject; tell him not to worry; don’t let him know 
you have got a bank account.” And Phoebe, overjoyed by 
this thoughtfulness on the old man’s part, begged her father 
to let her bring Maurice to see him, saying that she was 
quite sure he thought highly of Mr. Champness in his heart 
and was grieved by the misunderstanding in the past. 

Whether Maurice ever guessed where the money came 
from which relieved him from the burden of journalism, 
or whether, as old Champness prophesied, he was so ab- 
sorbed in his work that such a matter as housekeeping 
never entered his head, we are unable to say; but it is 
certain that he never even questioned Phoebe as to ways 
and means, and very seldom indeed put himself to the trou- 
ble of earning any money. 

And when the Liberal Party came back to power, and 
he was made Home Secretary, he moved from Camden 
Town to a larger house in Kensington without the smallest 
misgiving about the future. “ We are perfectly safe now,” 
he said to Phoebe ; “ the Tories will never come back. I 
have smashed them to pieces.” But Phoebe, who looked 
ahead, feared for her children, and consulted with Aunt 
Mildred and her father. They told her to be careful with 
her money, reasonably careful, but to employ good gov- 
ernesses for the children, and to entertain Maurice’s friends 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


219 


with the hospitality that would be expected of a Cabinet 
Minister. Old Champness discovered that Maurice allowed 
his wife two thousand pounds a year, and she paid for 
everything out of this — house-rent included. He thought 
the matter over for a week, and then told her that he had 
decided to buy the house. “ Say nothing to your husband/’ 
he said, “ or he’ll cut down your allowance ! ” 

So Phoebe looking ahead, still skimped and contrived, cut- 
ting down expenses, overlooking the servants with an 
assiduous care, and managing her house and her children 
with the thoroughness of a good German. 

Aunt Mildred was not so successful in the diplomacy 
she employed on behalf of Leonard. Old Champness said 
very firmly that he would spend not a single penny on a 
man who was under the thumb of a set of rascally priests. 
He expressed no antagonistic feelings for Leonard him- 
self ; he even went so far as to say that the young man 
would always be welcome to a place at his table; but he 
was adamant on the question of money. “ Mark my 
words,” he told his sister, “ Leonard will end his days as 
a Papist. Every time I see him I notice that silly look 
in his face which always comes with idolatry. He’ll turn 
Papist, depend on it.” One thing he was determined about ; 
no money of his should make that road easier. He loathed 
Rome with all the long heredity of an iron Protestantism; 
this hatred was the center of his religious life. 

As for Leonard, he really did not want his father’s 
money. He could now earn three or four hundred a year; 
his personal expenses seldom exceeded two hundred; and 
he had quite abandoned all idea of marrying Ruth Kings- 
ford. He went very often to Hampstead — nearly every 
Sunday, one might say — and he frequently met Ruth at 
Phoebe’s house, for Maurice had taken Phoebe to call on 
the Kingsfords, and the politician and the mystic were now 
on terms of considerable friendship. But Leonard re- 


220 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


garded Miss Kingsford as the perfect woman, the saint 
of his dreams, the unattainable beauty of his soul. He was 
content to love her as a part of his inward life. She con- 
secrated his purest thoughts. To be her friend was a pleas- 
ure very deep and satisfying; to think about her as the 
angel of his soul was the nearest he ever got to rapture 
and ecstasy. 

Ruth, for her part, was interested in three men ; she 
shared the strength of her mind between Father Prague, 
Leonard Champness, and Maurice Sangster. She found 
that she could help these three men, and their struggles 
appealed to her serenity. Father Prague, hungering and 
thirsting for an authentic tradition, for an institutional 
religion which had its foundations fastened in the very 
rock of Christian origin, was encouraged by her teaching 
to contemplate union with Rome. Leonard Champness, 
finding his reason at variance with Christian dogma, learned 
from Ruth Kingsford that there is a mystical interpreta- 
tion of dogma. And Maurice Sangster — to Ruth Kings- 
ford this crude and powerful man of action made another 
appeal : perhaps he appealed to her heart more than Father 
Prague — certainly more than Leonard Champness. She 
admired him; she grew to understand him. If her influ- 
ence refined him, his influence certainly widened her knowl- 
edge of life; and she knew that he came to her for some- 
thing nearer to the heart than politics, something which 
made her proud to feel that she could give him, and some- 
thing which she felt herself secure enough to give him with- 
out danger. 

She said to him once: “You are still sincere, just as 
sincere as when we first met ; but your motives have 
changed.” 

“ I know,” he answered ; “ that is perfectly true. And 
yet one might say that I started without any motive at 
all.” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


221 


“ Oh no ; you certainly had a motive ! ” 

“ I don’t think so. You can’t call an unthinking reli- 
gious enthusiasm a motive. But now I have a rational mo- 
tive. I have traveled from enthusiasm to science — per- 
haps to aesthetics. I want to make the social organism more 
efficient ; I want to make life less hideous and ugly ; I find 
I get more inspiration from doctors than from parsons.” 

“ And yet religion is at the back of it all, is it not? ” 

“ I suppose so. I am not sure. Yes, I think it is. But 
not my old idea of religion.” 

“ No ; that is true.” 

“ I was frightfully narrow ! What a mercy it is that 
the mind grows, that it has the power to fling off even the 
most tenacious influences of youth. I was a prig, a ter- 
rible prig. You could have put my idea of God into a 
match box ! ” 

“ What has changed you, do you think ? ” 

“ Acquaintance with man. Knowledge of the world. 
I started with the idea that society divided itself into two 
groups ; on one side was the vicious group which possessed 
everything, which hated God, and which obstructed prog- 
ress; on the other, the group which sought to advance in 
virtue and righteousness, but could not because of obstruc- 
tion from the other group. Can you imagine anything more 
stupid and naive? I see now that the real obstruction to 
progress is the heart of democracy itself. Instead of at- 
tacking other people, my work lies now in stirring up 
democracy to want progress, to want virtue, to want 
decency and comfort.” 

“Yes; I have noticed that change, and it is all for the 
good. But don’t forget, you stir up democracy by attack- 
ing the rich ! You never attack democracy itself.” 

“ Oh, in the country one has to shout. It is different in 
the House of Commons. And remember, party politics is 
still something of a game. You have no idea how difficult 


222 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


it is to get anything done. A man goes into politics with 
dreams; he means to change the world; and he discovers 
that the world is a very vast and intricate machine in which 
every nut and bolt is guarded by powerful forces. He 
can’t dream any longer. His main work is to stick where 
he is. His accomplishment can be little more than fiddling 
about with an oil can.” 

“ Yes,” said Ruth, nodding her head, “ very little more 
than that. The world changes men, but men cannot change 
the world. You know, don't you, that the world has 
changed you? I think it changes the man who seeks to 
change it more decisively than anybody else.” 

“ But I still mean to change the world. The thing is 
to wake up democracy; after that change will come at a 
flood. Wait a decade, wait a decade! But the work is 
hard. I assure you it is a sordid and a dreary business. 
Sometimes I am sick to death of it. I come to you when 
I am out of love with my life, because you give me a fresh 
impetus. Even when you criticize me, you encourage me. 
You are always so calm, your ideals never change, and you 
are so restful. Do you know that I count your friendship 
the most precious thing in my life ? ” 

“ In your political life,” she said, quietly and firmly. 

“ In my political life ? But I have no other. One can’t 
go into politics, if one means business, and not be absorbed 
by it.” 

“ That, I should say, is a condemnation of politics.” 

“ No doubt ; but it is a fact. One can’t play at politics. 
The man who uses the House of Commons as a club is 
not a politician. The real politician is a man who has the 
passion for government in his veins. Someone said to me 
the other day, and I believe it is true, that the real poli- 
tician, the man whose ambition is to control the government 
of an enormous empire like ours, can only have one other 
interest.” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


223 


She did not make any comment. 

“ Do you know what he meant ? ” 

“ Well, perhaps I can guess/’ 

“ Love for one woman.” 

“ Yes; one has read of such things.” 

“ I believe it is true.” 

“ Generalizations like that always seem to me rather fool- 
ish; and dangerous, too. One can think of many great 
statesmen. ...” 

“ Oh, no doubt. It was just an idea. It is a matter of 
temperament, isn’t it? I think that a man who develops 
early, and who marries the woman he loves when his pow- 
ers are at their best, may be happy in politics and domestic 
life ; but it is not so easy for a man who marries when he 
is young, who develops rapidly after marriage, and whose 
wife remains where she was when he married her. How 
often such a man must cry out for sympathy which his wife 
cannot give him ! How often she must jar upon his nerves ! 
How maddening it must be to feel that she lives completely 
outside the commotion of his soul! He can talk to her 
about the children’s clothes and the greengrocer’s bill; he 
can decide a matter about the governess; but where can 
he go when his heart is overcharged with its own sup- 
pression and he wants sympathy? Do you know what I 
do? Shall I tell you?” 

“ Well, I think not.” 

“ But you are my friend ; let me speak to you as 
a friend.” 

She shrugged her shoulders. “ I would rather that you 
did not. I am very proud to be your friend; and it is 
because I wish to be your friend that I think one should 
not touch intimately, certainly not secretly, the very circum- 
ference of your domestic life.” 

“ Oh, but I am only going to tell you a dream. I am not 
going to say anything unkind or disloyal. All I want to tell 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


224 

you is this: I have a romance of the imagination. What 
do you think of that? I imagine that I am in love with a 
very beautiful woman. I get rid of all my suppressed 
emotions by constructing scenes and carrying on pro- 
longed conversations with this woman of my dreams. The 
advantage is that she is always kind ! One can live in this 
way very delightfully. But you have no idea how exciting 
it is, and how difficult. There are wonderful meetings. 
There are words, pressures of the hand, kisses — yes, for- 
give me, even kisses — which are beautiful beyond descrip- 
tion. 

“ ‘ There was a rose without a thorn, and there 
The treasure, and no serpent to beware. 

Oh! think of such a mistress at your side 
In such a solitude, and none to chide! ’ 

In these moods — for love can only be a mood to one so 
busy as I — nothing in the whole world is so important as 
this exquisite woman who loves me profoundly, who un- 
derstands me perfectly, and who knows how I suffer. And 
when the mood is over, I emerge like a giant refreshed — 
yes, really that is true. You have no idea what my harm- 
less romance does for me. When I was a child I used 
to fall asleep telling myself stories in which I always fig- 
ured heroically; I escaped in this way from the hardships 
and drudgery and commonplace of the practical world. It 
is the same now. I tell myself a love-story; it is my only 
escape from politics. And when my mood is over, I take 
up the burden of daily life with new strength. It is like 
a change of air, a change of scene; one has fed on honey- 
dew and drunk the milk of Paradise/' 

She laughed in her gentle way, and looked straight ahead 
of her. “ How amusing if this mood fell upon you in the 
midst of a speech, and you began raving about love ! It is 
not impossible. Do you know what you are doing? You 
are hypnotising yourself. You are indulging in a prolonged 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


225 

experiment in auto-suggestion. Be careful ! If I were you, 
I should read a book when you feel that Hyde is giving way 
to Jekyll ! " 

He laughed. “ How completely you live above the 
earth ! ” he exclaimed. “ Read a book, say you ! Dear 
lady, when a man is in love there is no book in the world 
that can distract his thoughts. He cannot even say his 
prayers. His whole mind is mastered by one insurgent 
obsession. The very ground under his feet has no 
existence. ,, 

Ruth Kingsford was very nearly a saint, a saint in the 
world of ideas ; but she was human. She could not prevent 
herself from being interested in the heart of this impulsive 
man of action; she did not attempt to deceive herself as 
to the real nature of his romance; she liked to know that 
he cared for her. But she felt herself to be quite safe ; and 
she knew that her influence on his political life was whole- 
some and good. She saw no reason why she should with- 
draw from this interesting friendship. Now and then she 
was aware of danger; particularly when she was with 
Phoebe. There were moments when she felt sorry for 
Maurice, when she understood that his domestic life could 
not be easy, and in these moments she told herself that 
perhaps their friendship was perilous. But their intimacy 
drifted on. 

Phoebe had her father's dislike of Roman Catholics. She 
thought Ruth was very beautiful and charming, but she 
detected in her — perhaps it was the intuition of a wife 
who feels herself no longer loved — an element of slyness. 
She said to Maurice on one occasion : “ Miss Kingsford 
is always watching. I feel that she never enters into any- 
thing. She does nothing in life but look on. What a pity 
she doesn't get married. I think a baby might make her 
more natural and friendly." 


226 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


II 

On one of her weekly visits to Clapham, Phoebe had an 
interesting story for the ears of Aunt Mildred, who was 
winding gray wool on the back of a chair. 

“ After Maurice had spoken in the House of Commons 
yesterday,” Phoebe related, “ he was standing in the Mem- 
bers' Lobby talking to some friends, when he saw his 
mother and father crossing arm-in-arm to the doors on 
the other side. He was so surprised that he thought it must 
be a dream. He really couldn’t believe the evidence of his 
own eyes. But after a moment he recovered himself and 
went after them. And what do you think he discovered? 
Why, the two old dears had saved some money which he 
gave them years and years ago on purpose that they might 
hear him speak as a Cabinet Minister. Wasn’t it nice of 
them? But listen. Directly Maurice was made a Minister 
they went to their Pastor in the Chapel in Derby to ar- 
range everything for them so that they might come in secret 
and not humiliate Maurice by their presence — that was 
their word. Just think of it! Maurice drove off at once 
with them to the temperance hotel where they were stay- 
ing, collected their luggage, and brought them to our house. 
This morning he sent them with the children in a carriage 
to the Abbey and to the Tower; and this afternoon they 
are visiting the Zoological Gardens. Their pride and de- 
light are unbounded. You really must come, Aunt Mil- 
dred, and meet them. The dearest old things in the world 
— he, very jocular and polite ; she, critical, on the defensive, 
and veiling her enthusiasm behind a vigorous disapproval 
of things in general. Oh, so funny, she and he ! The chil- 
dren can scarcely keep their faces at meals : you can imag- 
ine it. But we all love them and it is perfectly delightful 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


227 

to see how overwhelmed they are by the grandeur of Lon- 
don and the greatness of their son.” 

Aunt Mildred came to the conclusion that here was an 
admirable opportunity for effecting that family reunion 
which was the dearest object of her life. She told the 
story of the two old Sangsters to her brother, told it very 
movingly, and suggested at the end of her narrative that 
it would be a pleasant and a kindly thing to ask them to 
dinner. “ And if we ask Maurice too,” she concluded, 
“ I am sure he would most gladly come.” 

Old Champness replied that he saw no reason why the 
Sangsters should not be asked to dinner ; but as for 
Maurice, well, he was under the impression that the Home 
Secretary was not very good at remembering old friends. 
In the end Aunt Mildred, with a very elated heart, found 
herself in the position for which she had maneuvered ever 
since she came to take Phoebe’s place. A dinner-party was 
arranged, and so genially did old Champness warm towards 
this entertainment that, two days before it came off, he 
bade Aunt Mildred spare no expense to make the dinner a 
tip-top affair, saying that he would bring two or three 
friends of his own to fill the table. 

When the evening arrived, all the lights on the ground 
floor of the Clapham home were turned full on, the hearth 
in the drawing-room was as clean as a new pin, and Aunt 
Mildred, in a long train, innumerable flounces, and a new 
cap, very cheerful but a little nervous, went to take a final 
view of the dining-room table five minutes before the guests 
were expected. It was really a spectacle. 

We can imagine what was in her heart as she looked 
upon that beautiful creation of her hands. There was not 
a detail there but which had occupied her thoughts for 
many days. She had planned the miter-like designs of 
the napkins, she had chosen the shades for the candles, she 
had selected the flowers, she had arranged the silver; and 


228 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


the little rolls from Mr. Carpenter, the famous confec- 
tioner on Clapham Common, the peaches, the grapes, the 
oranges, the apples, the almonds and raisins, the candied 
fruit in boxes, the chocolate creams in silver trays and 
the lordly pineapple at each end of the loaded and glis- 
tening table — all these things had been personally bought 
by Aunt Mildred with the pious idea of celebrating a fam- 
ily function, in which love and good-will were to triumph 
over misunderstanding and distrust. 

The sound of feet on the gravel outside sent this happy 
and satisfied hostess hurrying to the drawing-room at the 
back of the house. You may be sure that she shut the 
dining-room door as she came out, so that no one might 
see her beautiful table till the rightful hour. 

The guests who had disturbed her were Phoebe and the 
two old Sangsters — Mrs. Sangster senior bringing her cap 
in a large paper bag pinned across the top. Mr. Sangster, 
we may say, was dressed in a frock-coat of shining broad- 
cloth, with very wide lapels, in one of which was a blue 
ribbon; his waistcoat came close up to the turned-down 
collar which encircled his thin neck ; he wore a small black 
bow-tie; his elastic-side boots were new ones, and there- 
fore they took a polish very badly, and creaked as he 
walked. 

When Aunt Mildred had welcomed these guests, which 
she did warmly and engagingly, she carried off Mrs. 
Sangster and Phoebe, that they might put their bonnets 
off upstairs, bidding Mr. Sangster sit close to the fire and 
warm himself until they came down again. 

But old Sangster was warm — very hot — from the soles 
of his squeezed feet in the new boots to the crown of his 
head, which he had washed and brushed very thoroughly 
before starting out. He was glowing — glowing with pride, 
with bewilderment, with apprehension. He walked to and 
fro in the big room, smiling loosely, muttering to himself, 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


229 


blowing his nose like a trumpet with one of the three clean 
handkerchiefs, neatly folded in his tail-pockets, and finger- 
ing his cuffs, which continually came down to his knuckles. 
He was so happy that he could not sit still, so nervous 
that he had to rehearse again and again what he should say 
and how he should behave when the other guests arrived. 
The old gentleman, in short, was in a perfect fluster. 

The door opened, and Leonard Champness entered the 
room. 

His face had thinned and become pale ; the old obstinacy 
had given place to a look of gentleness — the silly look, as 
his father had called it. 

Old Sangster bowed low, and advanced to this stranger, 
washing his hands, smiling and muttering, his head first 
on this side and then on that, his cuffs all over his hands. 

“ I think,” said Leonard, “ you must be Mr. Sangster, 
the father of my brother-in-law?” 

“ I am, sir,” replied Sangster. 

They shook hands. 

“ Yes, sir, a humble and unworthy individual,” con- 
tinued old Sangster, “ but the father of the Right Hon- 
orable. God’s doing, sir, God’s doing. And you, sir, are 
the son of Mr. Humphry Champness? I am glad to meet 
you — proud, sir, proud. Your esteemed lady sister has 
spoken of you. A scholar, sir. Ah, I can see that for 
myself. Fond of books ! no doubt about it. A great reader, 
a student, a scholar. Well, sir, we want scholars; we 
can’t get on without them; the more scholars we have the 
better. I hope, sir, I’m not running on too much. Old 
men are garrulous. Shakespeare noticed that, sir. Ah, 
a wonderful man; I hazard the assumption, sir, that he 
knew nearly everything there is to know. We shall never 
have another like him, sir. You agree to that? You think 
so, too? Ah, I’m glad to find myself in agreement with so 
great a scholar.” 


230 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


At this point the ladies returned, and after a little gen- 
eral conversation, rendered extremely difficult by the mono- 
syllabic answers of Mrs. Sangster, which she snapped out 
as if she were there under protest and wanted to bite 
everybody’s nose off, old Sangster buttonholed Leonard, 
drew him aside, and asked furtive questions about his fa- 
ther. Not getting any satisfactory answers, however, to 
these elusive fishings, he concluded in this fashion: 

“ I remember him, sir. My memory is not a good one, 
but I remember your father; he was a prominent man in 
Derby, of course, but retiring, if I remember rightly — 
distinctly retiring. He won’t remember me, of course, 
though we saw each other in chapel for a number of years 
— at a distance, you understand. Now, sir, would you, 
knowing him well, call your father a genial man — genial, 
sir? A gentleman easy to get on with in social converse — 
would you call him that, sir? Forgive me asking such 
a question; but, to make a confession, sir — don’t let my 
wife hear me — I’m in a terrible fuss lest I should say any- 
thing to-night, or do anything, to disgrace the Right Hon- 
orable. I’m not used to company, sir. An old man. And 
sometimes when I run on, sir, I feel I say too much. Now, 
if your father is a genial man, sir . . 

Leonard did his best to reassure the old gentleman, but 
in his heart he entertained considerable doubts as to the 
reception Mr. Sangster was likely to receive at his father’s 
hands ; there was, indeed, a general feeling of nervousness 
in the room. Aunt Mildred was trembling for the meet- 
ing between her brother and Maurice. Phoebe was dis- 
tressed by the obdurate oppugnance of Mrs. Sangster’s man- 
ner, and had her own misgivings, too, about Maurice and 
her father. As for Leonard, something had occurred that 
day to distress him very much. Father Prague had gone 
over to the Roman Church, and the evening newspapers, 
in the absence of other news, were rather full of this mat- 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


231 


ter. Leonard had known for some days of his friend’s 
intention, but the noise made by the announcement had 
filled him with unhappiness. 

The door opened, and old Champness arrived, wearing 
his slippers as usual and carrying the evening newspaper 
in his hand. He looked cheerful — cheerful for Mr. Champ- 
ness. Sangster made a rush at him, wrung his hand 
warmly, and beaming into his face, assured him of the 
gratitude felt by “ self and wife ” for the cordial invitation 
which had brought them there. 

Mr. Champness said : “ You had better reserve your 
thanks till you see what my sister gives us to eat,” and 
walked over to Mrs. Sangster, on the best sofa, who did 
her utmost to remain seated, but failed ignominiously at 
the last moment, and actually said, as she shook hands, 
“ Pleased to meet you,” so terrible was the atmosphere of 
greatness and dignity carried about with him by old 
Champness. 

“Your friends have not come with you then?” inquired 
Aunt Mildred, beginning to feel more hopeful. 

“ My friends ? ” he asked, fumbling for his eyeglasses. 

“ You were to bring three friends, I thought, from the 
City?” 

Old Champness placed his eyeglasses on the end of his 
nose — he was standing on the hearth rug with his back to 
the fire — and replied, opening one of the newspapers : 
“ They’ll be here directly, I expect.” Then, looking at 
Leonard over his eyeglasses, as Phoebe and Aunt Mildred 
glanced at each other, he said : “ So your friend, Mr. 
Prague, has turned Papist, I see.” 

“ I see he has,” replied Leonard. 

“ Prague, sir, Prague? ” inquired old Sangster. “ Is that 
the clergyman we had at Derby? Father Prague they called 
him?” 

“ I always said,” announced Mrs. Sangster, straightening 


232 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


her skirt, “ that he was a Papist in disguise. Horrible 
man! teaching children about the Mass, as he called it; 
little children no bigger than your Humphry,” she added, 
turning to Phoebe, and folding her hands complacently 
in her lap. “ Dresses himself up like a regular guy ! I’ve 
no patience with such deceivers.” 

“ Well, ma'am,” said Champness, “ the country is full 
of such gentry.” 

“ I'm afraid it is, sir,” commented Sangster, shaking his 
head. 

“ The Church of England,” continued Champness, “ is 
a nursery for Rome; nothing more and nothing less. The 
clergy are going over in shoals. If they had their will 
they'd put us under the heel of the Pope to-morrow.” 

“ I tell you what it is, sir,” said old Sangster, scratching 
one of his wiry whiskers and speaking with great ani- 
mation ; “ we want another Martin Luther, sir. That’s 
what we want — another Martin Luther and another Crom- 
well. Big men, sir — big men ! You can't fight Rome with 
small men, sir; you want giants. You want men who are 
not afraid to take their coats off. I hope I may live to 
see the day when the Right Honorable — my son, sir, Her 
Majesty’s Secretary of State for Home Affairs — will take 
his coat off to Rome ; I should like to hear him say, ‘ Thus 
far and no farther ! ' I feel, sir, that he could do it. A 
strong man, a fearless man, and honest — honest as the 
day ! ” 

He was interrupted by the opening of the door, and the 
announcement by the servant of Mr. Girshel. 

Phoebe started and glanced with apprehension at Aunt 
Mildred. Mrs. Sangster turned her spectacles, with chal- 
lenge, to the door, and seeing Girshel, exclaimed: “Why, 
it’s the very man ! ” with infinite disgust ; but Girshel en- 
tered the room, smiling and well pleased. Champness and 
he now did business together; he had long sighed for a 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


233 


reconciliation with Maurice through the financier. He was 
delighted by the invitation he had received, and now greeted 
old Champness with the manner of an intimate friendship, 
making his bow all round and whispering in Mrs. Sang- 
ster’s ear, before she had time to smack his face, “ Faith- 
less one ! you haven’t got ’em on ! ” He was so friendly 
with Phoebe, too, that one might have thought that they had 
met on the previous day. Before the other guests had set- 
tled under this shock, the door opened, and in came old 
Gowler and Maud — old Gowler in a gray suit, and Maud 
in a violent mauve dress, very much frilled round the neck, 
and with her hair marvelously tired by a barber in the 
Westminster Bridge Road. 

Champness shook hands with them, and presented them 
to his sister as “ old friends, very old friends, of the Home 
Secretary, ’’ leaving her to continue the introductions while 
he returned to his newspaper, smiling sardonically. 

Leonard looked at his father, and then went to Phoebe, 
saying something to ease her anxiety. 

It must be explained that when old Champness heard 
from Phoebe the story of Maud Gowler at Lord Raven- 
struther’s — a story over which he chuckled heartily for 
many a long day — he sent Jiggens down to Lambeth, hav- 
ing got Gowler's address from Phoebe, to find out the 
condition of the family. The report of Jiggens led Champ- 
ness to send for Gowler. Gowler was in work, but times 
were bad; Champness helped him and kept an eye on 
him. It must not be thought that he spied into Maurice’s 
past, or that he was in any way disposed to credit the 
absurd delusion of Maud that Maurice had once been 
in love with her; he had only one purpose in his charity 
— to save up the Gowlers for the possible day when he 
might exhibit as a humbug and a snob the man who had 
once called him a Pharisee. 

The drawing-room was now in a condition of nervous 


234 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


excitement bordering on collapse. Mrs. Sangster was furi- 
ous with Girshel and could hardly be kept still. Phoebe 
was nearly as furious with Maud Gowler, whose airs were 
insufferable, and whose drawling voice made her feel quite 
ill. Leonard and Aunt Mildred, who now perceived that 
the dinner-party was evidently planned only to witness the 
discomfiture of Maurice, were in a state of indignant 
anxiety; and Girshel, who imagined that he had been 
asked by Mr. Champness in order to make it up with 
Maurice, felt himself insulted by the presence of such 
people as the Gowlers, and suspected a trap. Only old 
Sangster was happy, in the realization that Mr. Gowler was 
a man of his own standing. The relief afforded to his feel- 
ings by Gowler’s gray suit and grubby hands and beery 
countenance was really prodigious. 

Into this room, charged with so many conflicting emo- 
tions, entered, last of all, and on the very stroke of seven 
^o’clock, Maurice Sangster, the Home Secretary, fresh from 
the House of Commons. 

He entered the room with the eagerness and bustling 
alacrity of a man of affairs. He was conscious of his 
greatness, proud to return to this familiar house as a chief 
and honored guest, and he had the satisfactory feeling that 
he could afford to be generous. The first person he saw 
was old Champness himself, standing on the hearth rug 
facing the door, one newspaper under his left arm and an- 
other hanging to the floor from his right hand, his eye- 
glasses at the end of his blunt nose. 

Maurice thought to himself, “ How old he has got ! but 
he will last for years, all the same.” 

Champness thought to himself, “ As great a rogue as 
ever ! ” 

They shook hands as if nothing had happened, and 
Champness thought that in the firm grip and warm pressure 
of Maurice's hand there was meant to he something in the 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


235 


nature of an apology, but something also in the nature of 
forgiveness. “ I think you know everybody here/' he said ; 
“ no need to introduce you. A party of old friends who 
have not forgotten you.'’ 

Maurice turned round to greet Aunt Mildred, and came 
face to face with Girshel. 

“ Delighted to renew our friendship,” said the Jew, smil- 
ing amiably. “ Delighted and proud.” Then, in Maurice’s 
ear, “ Bygones are bygones, dear boy ! ” 

But Maurice, seeing the Jew, saw at the same time Maud 
Gowler. His face paled for a moment; he, too, felt him- 
self trapped. A wave of furious anger surged over his 
heart. He had to put severe restraint upon himself to be 
civil; it was really touch and go with him whether he 
should turn on his heel and go out of the room. He mum- 
bled a few words to Girshel and then, going to Maud, 
offered his hand, saying : “ Well, Miss Gowler, this is an 
unexpected pleasure. How is your father ? ” 

“ He’s here to speak for himself,” said Maud. “ So 
you’ve shaved yourself again; I knew you had by the pic- 
tures in the papers, but I’m glad to see it for myself. That 
beard of yours was horrid ! ” She turned to Phoebe, con- 
gratulating her on having induced Mr. Sangster to shave 
off the obnoxious beard. 

“ Why, Mr. Gowler,” exclaimed Maurice, full of good- 
humor, “ what a surprise this is ! Not changed a bit ; 
younger if anything.” And then, turning to old Champ- 
ness, “ I suppose you know, sir, that you’ve got here one 
of the most convinced and unalterable Conservatives in the 
country ? ” He laughed, and turned to greet his mother, 
whom he kissed on both cheeks. 

“ I’m glad to know there is someone here,” said Champ- 
ness, “ who doesn’t change.” 

Old Sangster went to Champness and whispered in his 
ear : “ Not spoilt by his greatness ! A splendid man, sir ! 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


236 

You’ll forgive me, sir, but I’m proud of him. Such a spirit, 
and yet simple as a child ! ” 

“ No doubt he is,” rejoined old Champness. 

The dinner, let us say at once, was saved by Maurice 
and by nobody else. Aunt Mildred thanked him after- 
wards, and expressed her deep regret at what she called 
her brother’s bad joke. Maurice was certainly admirable. 
Champness directed the guests at the table, and so arranged 
this disposition that Maurice had Maud Gowler at his side, 
and Girshel opposite. In spite of this disconcerting ar- 
rangement, however, Maurice rattled away in the most 
cheerful manner possible. He called it a dinner of old 
friends under happieV auspices, and laughed and smiled 
and jested till Girshel really felt that he loved the man. 
He said it was a capital idea of his father-in-law to ask 
people whom he had known in his early days and whom 
he had never forgotten. He recalled, with Maud Gowler, 
the memories of Lambeth, and told amusing stories to the 
table of his economies in those days. He chaffed Girshel 
across the table about politics, he made Gowler utter the 
most ultramontane opinions on social questions, and all the 
way through dinner he addressed old Champness with a 
very placating but quite manly respect. Aunt Mildred, at 
the other end of the splendid table, felt that he was a 
veritable hero. 

Phoebe wished that he was more often like this in his 
own home. 

As for Champness, who plowed slowly through his great 
dinner and only occasionally uttered some mordaunt re- 
mark, he thought that Maurice had improved in one direc- 
tion and deteriorated in another. “ He’s no longer a prig,” 
he concluded, “ but he’s also no longer a Christian. He’s 
a man of the world, through and through, over the ankles, 
and up to the neck.” This conviction forced itself more 
and more upon the old man and made him angry. 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 237 

It was not until the ladies had withdrawn, after a superb 
ice, which Aunt Mildred had kept as the culminating sur- 
prise of her fine dinner, that conversation became serious — 
really serious ; and the seriousness turned not upon politics, 
but upon religion. 

Maurice, lighting a cigarette, turned to Leonard, who 
was now sitting beside him, and said : “ So Prague has 
gone over? I was afraid of it.” 

At this Champness unloosed. “ I’m told,” he said, “ that 
Nonconformity has had its day. Wherever I go I am told 
that Nonconformity cannot keep its young men. Pastors 
are adopting all kinds of new methods to try and keep the 
young men, but the effort fails. Nonconformity is dead. 
The old people are dying off; the young people are drift- 
ing away. If this is so, what stands between the country 
and its conquest by Rome?” 

There was silence for a moment. Then Maurice an- 
swered, knocking the ash off his cigarette, leaning forward 
to do this and frowning down at the plate in front of him : 
“ I quite agree that the situation is serious ; but I think 
it is serious in another way. Nonconformity is losing its 
young men, but not to Rome. The Church of England 
is losing a few of its clergy to Rome, but not its laity; 
its laity is declining in numbers, but the defection is not 
to Rome. The real loss of all the churches is, in 
fact, the gain of infidelity. Indifference carries them 
out, not antagonism; that is the seriousness of the situa- 
tion.” 

“ That’s very true — very true indeed,” said his father, 
shaking his head. He had listened to Maurice from the 
other side of the table, leaning forward, with a hand be- 
hind his ear, so as not to lose a single word. 

Old Gowler said : “ You can’t expect people to believe 
what is in the Bible; it’s against reason.” 

This highly explosive remark was ignored by everybody, 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


238 

except Girshel, who winked, as much as to say, “ Wait till 
I start on them ! ” 

“ I don’t believe in infidelity,” said old Champness ; 
“ man is by nature religious. Infidelity is only a phase ; 
it will pass, and when it has passed, you will find that this 
country is under Rome.” 

“ I don’t agree with you, Mr. Champness,” said Girshel, 
taking his cigar from his lips. “ I’m sorry to cross you ; 
but I don’t believe that what you say is true. Look now, 
if there is one religious people in the world, it is my peo- 
ple. And what do we find to-day? Why, it’s the same 
with us as with you Christians : the young people are break- 
ing away. Why? Because this is an age of science and 
enlightenment. Religion belongs to the dark ages ; it’s 
superstition. It laid its hold on the human species before 
reason had properly developed its little cell under the hu- 
man skull. As soon as ever reason began to assert itself, 
religion dropped back ; it has been dropping back ever since. 
Presently it will drop off altogether, like the monkey’s tail. 
The priests have taken the sword and the torch against 
reason, they have had kings and Governments on their 
side, everything in this world has been on their side; 
but they’ve failed. Freedom has triumphed; and Freedom 
is atheism.” 

“ Well, I never ! ” exclaimed old Sangster. 

“ That’s right,” said Gowler, nodding his head — he was 
smoking a cigar and making the end very spongy and drag- 
gled — “ and I never heard it put better nor conciser. Rea- 
son’s the winner. Hands down.” 

“ I’m sorry to hear such sentiments at my table,” said 
old Champness very solemnly. 

“ Hear, hear ! ” exclaimed Sangster. “ Hear, hear, in- 
deed, sir ! ” 

“ We live in a free country,” cautioned old Champness — 
“ a freedom won and maintained by Protestants : every man 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


239 

is entitled to his opinions and his right to express 
them. . . 

“ That's so ! ” said the approving Sangster. 

“ But," said Champness, “ there are some opinions which 
ought not to be expressed at a gentleman’s table; and of 
those opinions, atheistical opinions are the chief and the 
most shameful." 

“ No man is an atheist," Maurice put in. He looked 
straight at Girshel. “ You aren’t really an atheist," he 
said. “ You think you are ; but you’re like the rest, only 
an agnostic — that is to say, one who has shelved a ques- 
tion he is too indolent or too much occupied to decide." 

“ You’re wrong, Mr. Home Secretary ! ’’ cried old Gow- 
ler. “ I know hundreds of atheists. I’m one. I’ve thought 
it out. I can prove to any reasonable man that ’’ 

“ Oh, hush, hush ! " cried old Sangster. “ Upon my 
soul ! Good heavens ! what have I lived to hear ! " 

“ I think, perhaps, we had better change the conver- 
sation," said Champness. 

“ Forgive me," laughed Girshel, “ but I find that is what 
religious people always suggest directly they meet with 
opposition." 

“ We were speaking not of the general question of reli- 
gion," said old Champness; “that is a matter both unfit- 
ted for a dinner-table and impossible of solution in the 
course of conversation. We were speaking of churches, 
and of Rome in particular, and a question which men can 
discuss within reasonable bounds. In some ways we may 
call it a ‘ political question.’ " 

“ Rome is dead ! ’’ exclaimed Girshel, cigar in mouth — 
“ dead as a cat ! " 

“ I dififer from you. I should say she was very much 
alive," replied Champness. 

“ Her power is certainly dwindling on the Continent," 
said Maurice. 


240 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ But not in this country,” rejoined Champness. 

“ Perhaps not.” 

Old Champness looked at his son. “ What is your feel- 
ing,” he demanded, “ about Mr. Prague’s perversion ? ” 

Leonard, to whom this discussion was odious in the ex- 
treme, looked up slowly, regarded his father for a moment, 
and replied : “ I should say he would have a very good 
influence on his new communion.” Then he lowered his 
eyes again. 

“ What does that mean ? ” asked old Champness, full of 
fight, looking round the table, the color rising to his cheeks. 

“ Mr. Gladstone said,” put in Maurice quietly, “ that 
whenever he heard of a good Anglican going over to Rome, 
his one consolation was the hope that the defection might 
lead eventually to the reformation of the Roman Church.” 

“Fudge!” cried old Champness. “Fudge! Pm sorry to 
hear that Mr. Gladstone ever talked such nonsense ! Rome 
never changes.” 

“ No,” laughed Girshel ; “ she rots ! ” 

“ She’s done,” declared Gowler. “ Gone to pot long ago. 
Not a kick left in her. You ought to go in the Park on a 
Sunday afternoon ! ” 

“ Rome will remain as she is,” said old Champness, “ till 
the end of the world; she is the unchangeable Antichrist. 
No,” he said, looking at Leonard, “ you may put out of 
your head any notion that Mr. Prague will alter the Vati- 
can. The Vatican has got him, as it may very possibly get 
you, and neither you nor Mr. Prague will change a comma 
in its blasphemies.” He stopped for a moment, having fired 
this great shot, and then exclaimed : “ What was the tri- 
umph of Protestantism ? It was the triumph of the Teuton 
races over the power of the priest. The common sense and 
the freedom-loving qualities of the Teuton races threw off 
the pretensions of that tyrannous priestcraft, and set the 
written Word of God in supreme authority over each man's 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


241 


individual soul; but ever since that day — that day which 
brought freedom to humanity — there have been traitors in 
the free churches, plotting and scheming for the return 
of priestcraft. As sure as I’m a living man, Rome will 
return to England — return in triumph, and on the back of 
the false priest; and then liberty will perish. Why do I 
think so? Do you ask me that ! Well, I will tell you. Be- 
cause there is a tolerance abroad which is fatal to Prot- 
estantism. Protestantism can only live while it is a fighting 
force. Take the fight out of Protestantism, make your 
Protestantism conciliatory, and the only living Protestant- 
ism, which is Rome’s insuperable barrier to tyranny, ceases 
to exist. Look at yourself, look at Mr. Maurice Sangster, 
both of you are friends of this traitor, Prague. Why, my 
father would not have had him in the house, and if he 
appeared at my door I would fling him into the street ! ” 
The old man was tremendously roused. 

There was a long silence after this hot-tempered speech. 
At last Maurice raised his head and inquired : “ But surely, 
sir, you don’t really mean that we are to turn our backs 
on a man because he is a Catholic ? ” 

“ No, I don’t mean anything so foolish,” said old Champ- 
ness ; “ but I mean that no honest Protestant ought to make 
a friend of a man obviously and openly plotting to hand 
over this country to the mercies of Rome. That kind of 
intimacy is nothing more and nothing less than treachery. 
It’s the work of traitors.” 

Girshel laughed. “ How these Christians love one an- 
other ! ” he exclaimed. “ Well, really, I think it is time 
that I suggested a change of conversation. Let’s talk about 
politics. We’ve got the Home Secretary here. Could we 
have a better opportunity for learning State secrets ? Come, 
sir, let’s talk politics,” he concluded, turning to Champ- 
ness and touching his arm. 

But Champness said, without turning to Girshel, and 


242 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


looking at old Sangster, who became very excited in con- 
sequence: “I mentioned this subject because I think it 
is time for a man like my son to cut himself adrift from 
these corrupting Anglicans, and time for a man like your 
son to speak out in public and tell the country of its peril. 
I am a patient man; I don’t wish to exert any undue 
influence. I have no wish to drive any man against his 
will; but it is as well, perhaps, that my decision should 
be known. I don’t want my children to say they were not 
warned. Not a shilling of my money goes to anyone 
who is not an honest, outspoken, and decided Noncon- 
formist. Now,” he concluded, rising from the table, “ we 
will join the ladies.” 

At the door, which he opened, the old man stopped and 
put a hand on Maurice’s arm, looking at him very closely. 
“ Come, now,” he said, in a rather agreeable way, “ you’re 
a Nonconformist, aren’t you?” 

“ Certainly,” said Maurice, surprised by this continuance 
of a disturbing topic. 

“ Well, now tell us ; it will be interesting. You occupy 
a prominent position in the social and political world; you 
represent Nonconformity, where it is not often represented. 
Now, tell us : when did you last go to chapel? ” 

The question came like a pistol shot. 

Old Sangster, who had pressed closely up to Mr. Champ- 
ness directly he began to address Maurice, now turned to 
his son. “ Well, that’s easily answered. Last Sunday night, 
I should say.” 

“ Wait a moment,” said old Champness. “ Now, did 
you,” he asked Maurice, “ go to chapel last Sunday?” 

Maurice wondered whether Phoebe had been speaking 
about his habits. “ No,” he said, “ I did not. I was too 
busy, I regret to say.” 

“ Or the Sunday before ? ” 

“ No, nor the Sunday before.” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


243 


“ And the Sunday before that ? ” 

Leonard walked out of the room, passing between the 
group and the wall, with disapproval and disgust marked 
visibly on his face. 

“ I really forget,” answered Maurice, his eyes kindling. 

“ My son ! my son ! ” exclaimed old Sangster. “ And yet, 
sir,” turning to Champness, “ we must remember that a 
Cabinet Minister . . .” 

Girshel and Gowler were laughing together. “ You never 
saw a more praying fellow in your life,” said Gowler, 
“ when I first knew him. Why, he was always asking a 
blessing and flopping down in our kitchen, showing the 
whites of his eyes. Pray! Why, he’d pray till he was 
hoarse ! ” 

Champness said : “ Cabinet Ministers have more need to 
go to chapel than anybody else, Mr. Sangster. Not in that 
spirit did the great founders of the free churches regard 
the Sabbath day. I am not a narrow man, I am not in- 
tolerant; but I tell you, this spirit of contempt for our 
religious customs is eating into the vitals of the nation. 
I'll say no more. I was only anxious to know what so 
famous and distinguished a representative of Noncon- 
formity as your son did with his Sundays. You and I, 
Mr. Sangster,” he said, taking his arm and leading him out 
of the room, “ are two very old-fashioned men ; we belong 
to the past. The future of our country belongs to Non- 
conformists who don’t go to chapel and ritualists in the 
Established Church who do go to Rome.” 

Girshel, following up behind, nudged Maurice in the 
ribs, made a wry face, winked his eye, and whispered : “ Cut 
off with a shilling, dear boy ! ” 

Old Gowler, who was holding the tattered and spongy 
end of his cigar between the thick fingers of his discolored 
hand, with the lighted end turned inwards to the palm, 
said to Girshel, hiccoughing as he did so, for he had eaten 


244 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


enormously and had drunk many tumblers of lemonade, a 
new drink which disagreed with him : “ I’d take on anybody 
here — anybody, and lay 'em out flat. Why, they don't 
know nothing. They’re talking in the air. Religion ! 
What is it? Why, a blooming fairy tale.” 

They found Maud Gowler holding forth in the drawing- 
room with great eloquence on the ways of aristocracy. 


Ill 

Three weeks after the unhappy dinner-party in Clap- 
ham, Maurice Sangster learned from Leonard Champness 
that the Kingsfords were going to Cap Martin for the 
winter. By a very odd coincidence Maurice consulted his 
doctor on the following day, and was advised to spend 
the winter in the South of France. Although Phoebe was 
inclined to regard the arrangement as “ rather peculiar,” 
it was really quite natural that Sir Edward and Lady Kings- 
ford should ask Maurice to join their party when they 
learned that he was under medical orders to winter 
abroad. 

The truth is, Maurice was thoroughly run down. The 
Liberal Party had been in a bad way for several months, 
and the work of persuading a slightly incredulous country 
to believe that the Government was seriously attempting 
to usher in Millennium fell almost entirely upon Maurice. 
After a hard-fought and perilous session, he had visited 
some of the principal manufacturing towns, delivering what 
are called “ fighting speeches,” and a fighting speech dif- 
fers from other speeches only in this respect, that it gen- 
erally takes more out of the fighter than the party it is 
meant to annihilate. Certain it is that Maurice felt ex- 
hausted, and as it was highly important that he should be 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


245 


at his very best in the next session — when this much- 
threatened Government, driven to it by the temperance 
party, were going to draw swords against the brewing 
interest — everybody agreed that a winter abroad would be 
the best possible stimulant for the jaded Minister. 

So Maurice went to Cap Martin with the Kingsfords, 
and spent two of the very happiest months of his life away 
from Phoebe and the children. He responded to the warm 
sun and the sea air; he was exhilarated by long tramps 
into the mountains ; he loved the fine scenery ; he went early 
to bed every night; and he read books given to him by 
Ruth Kingsford which were good for him to read. 

It was decided on the journey out that Maurice certainly 
ought to know French, and Ruth undertook to give him 
lessons. They would go to the rocks nearly every after- 
noon, and sit there with the noise of the waves in their 
ears, the salt dust of the sea blowing in their faces, and 
carry out their serious undertaking. Nor did Maurice 
ever seek to interrupt the lesson with more intimate con- 
versation. He was in earnest ; he wanted to know French, 
and he found the learning of it a pleasant and stimulating 
recreation. 

Indeed, it may be said at once that although Maurice 
had a very great admiration for Ruth Kingsford, only on 
one single occasion during these two months of close com- 
panionship, and then but momentarily, did he ever show 
the least sign of deeper feeling. Set free from the sordid 
and trivial vexations of party politics, breathing no longer 
the horribly unhealthy atmosphere of the House of Com- 
mons, and delivered from the necessity of composing end- 
less speeches full of trumpets and battle-axes, the young 
Minister recovered something of the fervorous freshness 
of his youth, and honestly longed to be of real service to 
the human race. 

He said to Ruth one day, as they came back from their 


246 THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

French lesson : “ What do you think of me ? — I am longing 
to be back.” 

“ Before your accent is perfect ? ” she inquired, smiling 
to herself. 

“ Before I am too old to win my game.” 

“ What is your game — tell me ? ” 

“ To become Prime Minister. You know what people 

say — that I shall certainly be Prime Minister after 

and after . But I want to be the next Prime Min- 

ister, and as soon as possible. There, I have told you my 
secret. Do you believe in a pure ambition ? ” 

“ In politics?” 

“ Yes ; in politics.” 

“ Pm not sure.” 

“ Well, Pve questioned myself a hundred times, par- 
ticularly since I came here, and I believe my ambition is 
pure. IT1 give you my reason. Do you know why I want 
to be the next Prime Minister? Because I fear the world, 
because I fear the House of Commons, because I fear 
middle-age. These three things may make me dishonest; 
they may corrupt my ambition. Do you see what I mean? 
A man grows blase, and cynical, and fagged in the House 
of Commons. As he grows older he loses touch with 
democracy, and becomes more and more the complacent 
slave of the party machine. He thinks of himself; he 
forgets the people are hungry. He considers the interests 
of his party ; he forgets that his fellow-creatures are housed 
worse than dogs. He goes about the country getting ex- 
cited about structural alterations, and all the time the flesh 
and blood of human beings suffer hideously. What rot, 
what rot it is! all this bother about education, disestab- 
lishment, and licensing. You’d think by the noise we made 
that our measures were going to revolutionize life. They 
won’t make a single human creature happier — not a single 
human creature. Session after session, year after year, 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


247 

Parliament after Parliament — and the result — Words ! 
What I want to do is to pull down a third of England, and 
build it up again. Housing — that’s the center of the po- 
sition. Good houses for the poor ; plenty of room, plenty 
of air, and spaces everywhere for the children to play. 
And after that wages. Those are the two first steps to- 
wards a democratic state. A decent house and a living 
wage ! How does that sound to you for a battle-cry ? Do 
you wonder I want to go home ? ” 

She asked him why he feared the House of Commons, 
the world, and middle-age. He told her of the social in- 
fluences at work in politics, of the nervous exhaustion pro- 
duced by the atmosphere of the House of Commons, and 
of the skepticism which befalls men in middle-age as to 
heroic remedies for the ills of humanity. 

“ But,” she said, “ you ought to have something in your 
soul powerful enough to protect you against these 
diseases.” 

“ You mean religion ? Why, some of the most cynical 
and narrow and embittered men in the House of Com- 
mons are Roman Catholics, High Churchmen, and Noncon- 
formists. I assure you the business of party politics is 
a very destructive one; a man cannot keep the freshness 
and purity of his motives in an atmosphere that is charged; 
with trickery, tactics, and self-seeking. All last session 
I was as bad as anyone. It is only now, looking back from 
these happy days, that I see my position in its true light. 
What was I working for? Shall I tell you? To keep my 
party in power! On my honor, that is true. It absorbed 
me. I felt it was the work of the universe! To keep my 
party in power ! Think of the speeches I made, the people 
I saw, the hours I slaved — simply to keep my party in 
power.” 

“ And now ? ” 

“ And now! Why, I am strong enough to say, Damn 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


248 

my party! I’m ready to take risks. I’m bold enough to 
trust democracy. I believe in the possibility of reform.” 

There were days when he told her about the life of 
people who toil for a starving dole in the slums of our 
congested cities; and she was greatly moved, and drew 
nearer to him, and desired with all her heart that he should 
conquer in his battle against the Whigs. She became 
ashamed of her own Church, and grew to see that the poor 
had been frightfully neglected. 

“ The priests,” she said to him one day, “ are the Whigs 
of politics. They ought to be Radicals like you — every 
one of them.” This was after a peregrination of the slums 
in Mentone. Maurice discovered that in the Roman Catho- 
lic Church there are almost as many divisions of opinion 
as distract the Protestant churches. He came to learn 
that Ruth Kingsford, who was becoming more Radical 
every day, did not believe in many of the dogmas which 
he had always held to be the very foundations of Rome. 
When he spoke of these dogmas, she gave him the mystics’ 
interpretation of them, and taught him to see that there 
is an evolution in dogma as in everything else. “ We do 
not believe word for word what our forefathers believed,” 
she said to him : “ but we believe in the spirit which they 
endeavored to express by words, and in something higher 
than they were able to glimpse.” 

He went with the Kingsfords on one occasion to Mass. 
There were several matters in the ritual which troubled 
him, angered him, irritated him. He said to himself: 
“ What cheats these priests are, mumbling their old Latin, 
and making mysterious signs, like the magic-workers of 
heathen times ! ” But in the afternoon of that day, talking 
to Ruth of these things, he discovered that they all had 
their roots in an ancient and reverent tradition, that they 
all symbolized something which he had to acknowledge was 
beautiful, and that they had no other meaning in their use 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


249 

than to stimulate the imagination of the people and to 
increase their sense of reverence. There are books, he 
learned, which teach the people the meaning of this ritual; 
they are not cheated or kept in the dark of the mystery. 
For instance, he observed that when the priest elevated 
the Host, the kneeling servers lifted the chasuble of the 
priest. Why did they do that? What good did it do? 
What purpose was served by it? 

Ruth told him that in the great churches the chasuble 
is so heavy with lace and jewels that the priest really can- 
not raise his arms easily; but the custom is maintained 
in simpler churches because it symbolizes the essential 
priesthood of the laity — “ the server,” she said, “ in lifting 
the chasuble, symbolizes to the congregation that they, too, 
are elevating the Host. It is an act which associates the 
laity with the altar.” 

He came to see, in fact, that most of the customs in the 
Roman ritual help the worshipers and include the wor- 
shipers. He could not deny to himself, and he did not 
deny to Ruth, that he now saw force and beauty in the 
Roman Mass. 

She said to him : “ Think what it is for us to feel that 
our Eucharist is catholic — that while we pray and worship, 
all over the world men and women of every nation are 
praying and worshiping in exactly the same words, and 
with exactly the same ritual ! For centuries, from the very 
dawn of Christendom, our worship has ascended to Heaven. 
Don’t you agree that this thought is a help ? ” 

“ But the words don't ascend — the ritual doesn't ascend 
— only the spirit.” 

“ But we say that the words and the ritual have been 
decreed by which the spirit can most fitly ascend. How 
long have they endured ! You will find them in the Greek 
Church and the Anglican Church. Your brother-in-law is 
a Catholic. It is only Nonconformists who have really 


250 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


broken the tradition. You are outside the Catholic Church, 
but your brother-in-law is a Catholic.” 

“ What ! Don't you regard Leonard as a heretic ? ” 

“ Nonsense ! He is a very good Catholic.” 

“ You are broader-minded than most Catholics, then! ” 

“ Look ! ” she said, and pointed ahead. 

Two old peasants, a man and his wife, had come to a 
Calvary in the road; the man took off his cap, and stood 
before the Crucifix with his head bowed; the woman ad- 
vanced to the stone steps, put down her basket before 
her, and kneeled on the lowest step, clasping her hands and 
looking upward. 

“ Don’t you think it would be better for England,” she 
asked, “ if you could see such a spectacle as that in Bir- 
mingham or in Manchester ? ” 

“ It reminds me,” he said, “ I don’t know why, of some- 
thing I saw not long ago in London — something that has 
haunted me ever since. It was quite a different thing, but 
those old peasants give me exactly the same feeling — a 
feeling half of pain and half of pity.” 

“ What was it — tell me ? ” 

“ It is not easy to tell.” 

The old peasants continued their way, and as they passed 
Ruth and Maurice, the man doffed his hat, the woman 
smiled, and they uttered a gentle blessing — all very cheer- 
ing and dignified. 

Ruth stood before the Calvary for a moment, and then, 
crossing herself, kneeled for a moment on the lowest step. 
Maurice uncovered. 

“ Those old people,” she said, coming back to him, “ have 
made this holy ground. Tell me, now, what was it you saw 
in London ? ” 

“ Well,” he replied, “ when my father and mother were 
staying with us, I took them one day to a place of amuse- 
ment — I really forget where — and it was while we were 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


251 


walking home that the thing occurred. I had left them 
to go into a shop, and they continued their way, my father 
stooping down to give his arm to my mother, who was 
always rather alarmed by the crowded streets, and sus- 
pected everybody of being a pickpocket. You can picture 
them going along, can’t you? Two very obviously country 
people, old-fashioned, and a little grotesque, no doubt, to 
the cockney; and my mother certainly old, and as cer- 
tainly not beautiful. Well, just as I came up behind them, 
they were passing one of those poor, wretched women of 
the street, garishly dressed, rouged, and all the rest of it — 
a rather pretty and a fairly young person, standing with 
her back to a shop-window — waiting. I expected to see her 
laugh or sneer. But my mother had apparently just uttered 
some querulous remark, for my father stooped down to her, 
and I heard him say : ‘ It will be all right, my love, don't 
you fear, dear, don’t you fear; I’ll take care of you.’ And 
do you know that a look of positive agony passed over 
the girl’s face, a sudden spasm of pain, and she turned and 
looked after them wistfully. It seemed to me she was 
thinking of her own old age. How very ugly my mother 
must have seemed to her — but how greatly loved! How 
very ungenial and complaining, but how tenderly cared for ! 
And she, young, pretty, engaging ! — standing there, waiting, 
waiting, waiting, with no one to show her a kindness. Her 
f ace — the pain of it ! My God ! it was like a knife through 
my heart. I walked behind the old people for five min- 
utes, trying to hide them, avoiding at least making myself 
a further evidence of the love which surrounded my poor 
old mother. I shall never forget what I felt.” 

“ Those women,” said Ruth, “ are to be pitied, but they 
are the worst enemies of God and society.” 

Maurice was surprised by the judgment in her voice. 
The subject was too indelicate, but he wanted to say: 
“ Have I found you out, then, in one intolerance ? ” He 


252 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


was disappointed at the reception of his story, and disap- 
pointed to find that Ruth could be hard. 

“ You can imagine what such women mean to us, who 
are Catholics, and who exalt and worship the Blessed Vir- 
gin,” she said slowly. 

“ But such a woman found pity at the hands of Him 
Who ” 

“ Oh, we pity them. We don’t judge them individually. 
And the woman who was not stoned — was she really one 
of an organized trade? Do you know that our Church, 
which is so earnest about the purity of women, is very 
pitiful to one who sins because she loves? That is a dif- 
ferent thing. I can imagine a good woman, a perfectly 
true Catholic, falling into sin through love. And the 
Church would forgive her; she has to confess her sin and 
to repent, but forgiveness is freely and tenderly given to 
her. But those others No; they are horrible/’ 

Before Maurice could make any reply, she asked him: 
“ But what made you think of that scene ? — what con- 
nected it with the Calvary ? ” 

“ I can’t tell you,” he said. “ Perhaps I felt that those 
peasants were very much happier in their superstitions 
than I with my more rational religion — forgive the self- 
esteem. I quite frankly confess that a man who stands 
where I stand now is not so happy as the people who stand 
where my father and mother stand, or where those two old 
peasants stood.” 

“ They knelt ! ” she said, smiling. 

“ Ah, there’s something in life, some stream of tendency, 
that carries us away, not exactly against our wills, but 
in spite of ourselves, towards a future that shows no har- 
bor. I know my father is a happier man than I am; yet 
I would rather be dead than live such a life as his. I know 
that my life of struggle and contention is full of disillusion ; 
I know very well that it affords no real rest, promises no 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 253 

enduring peace— yet I must live it, yet I long to get back 
to it. Something has spoiled me for a life of pleasant 
ease.” 

“ I suppose if you became a Catholic it would inter- 
fere with your ambition ? ” 

“ Oh, but I have no thought of becoming a Catholic.” 

“ What a pity ! I am sure the discipline would give you 
just that sense of peace, that feeling of real background, 
which your life lacks at present.” 

“ What you have done for me,” he replied, “ is to broaden 
my mind, to make my sympathies more catholic; you have 
taken away a great wall of my prejudice, and let more 
sunlight and fresh air into my soul. But I belong now to 
no Church — at least, I like to think I belong to the only 
true Church! You know what I mean?” 

It was necessary for him to return sooner than he ex- 
pected. A telegram came from Ravenstruther urging him, 
if possible, to travel by the next train. He put off his 
departure, however, till the night express, and gave him- 
self up for that day to the enjoyment of Ruth's society. 
Sir Edward and Lady Kingsford had gone to Men- 
tone when the telegram arrived. Ruth was alone in the 
garden of the hotel, sitting in a deck-chair, and writing 
letters on her lap. When she heard the news, a shadow 
passed across her eyes, nor did she attempt to conceal her 
regret. 

“ But you were to spend three days with us in Paris ! ” 
she exclaimed ; “ and your French is only just beginning to 
interest you! What a pity; oh, what a pity! I am more 
sorry than I can tell you.” 

The frankness of this regret made him very happy. He 
said to her : “ Leave a message for your people, and let 
us go up for the last time into the hills.” 

She put away her papers, and rose from the chair, giv- 
ing him the portfolio to carry. “ I suppose you are 


254 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


delighted,” she said, putting up her sunshade, “ to be going 
back to the excitement and the battle.” 

“ I should be happier if you were coming back too ! ” 

“ Well, we shall only be nine or ten days behind you ; and 
perhaps you will soon find me fighting on the Radical side.” 

“ Do you know,” he said to her, stopping and looking 
into her eyes as he faced towards her, “ that these have been 
the very happiest days in my whole life ? ” 

“ I am so glad,” she said with energy, quite frankly and 
joyfully. 

“ And from this,” he said, with a sudden access of emo- 
tion, “ I go back to the hustings and to — Kensington ! ” 

They looked at each other for a full moment without 
speaking. Then Ruth turned and walked towards the hotel. 
They did not utter a word all the way, nor when she 
turned in the hall to take her portfolio did she even thank 
him. 

He sat and waited for her. His heart was beating fast; 
he was conscious of great pain and great excitement; he 
knew that he loved her more than anyone in the world, 
more than his career, more than the topmost summit of 
his ambition; and he knew that he had told her; and he 
thought that she had answered him. 

He waited and waited. 

It became impossible for him to sit still. He walked to 
and fro in the lounge, trying to think, trying to realize what 
had happened to him. 

Someone was approaching him from behind. He turned 
quickly, thinking it was Ruth, and came face to face with 
her maid. 

He was told that Miss Kingsford was sorry, but she did 
not think she could go for a walk. She was feeling the 
sun, and would lie down till luncheon. 

When he met her at luncheon she was quite natural and 
happy; nor did she seek to avoid him afterwards. They 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


255 


parted as very good friends between whom there was noth- 
ing hidden or critical. The Kingsfords went to see him off 
at the station, and the farewells lacked nothing in cheerful 
good-humor. 


iy 

Ravenstruther explained the situation in a few pic- 
turesque words. “ We are in the devil's own mess/' he 
said. “ In fact, we are between the Scylla of temperance 
fanaticism and the Charybdis of Bung’s millions — what? 
Unless we do something more for the temperance John- 
nies we shall be beaten in the House of Commons; and if 
we do anything more for the temperance Johnnies, Bung 
will beat us in the country. There you are, my dear fel- 
low. That’s the situation — what?” 

The Prime Minister, it appeared, wanted Maurice to 
square the temperance party, to soften the asperities of 
the Government measure, and to make a few speeches in 
the country which would keep the party together for the 
sake of the wonderful measure of social reform which is 
always to come when the present useless but tactical Bill 
is out of the way. 

Maurice said to Ravenstruther : “ As it stood, this Bill 
would scarcely touch the drink question; as it stands now, 
it won’t touch it at all.” 

Ravenstruther, whose father was very ill just then, and 
who was, therefore, conscious that he might be sitting in 
the House of Lords before the next session had come to 
an end, nodded his head very wisely, inserted his fingers 
into his waistcoat pockets and looked down at his patent- 
leather boots; working his feet inside them. 

“ I know, my dear fellow,” he replied thoughtfully, “ I 
know. You’re perfectly right. The whole thing is a 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


256 

monstrous mistake — what ? ” He looked up. “ But what 
are we to do? We’ve got Bung confronting us in a state 
of cash-payment indignation; and we’ve got the temper- 
ance crowd shoving at our backs with a cudgel in their 
strong right hand. Que voulez-vous? ” 

“ Why don’t we abandon the farce,” demanded Maurice, 
“ and go in for something real, like housing ? ” 

“ Housing ! The land ! My dear fellow, you can’t be 
serious ! ” Ravenstruther laughed. 

“ But I am. I’m quite serious,” Maurice replied. 

“ What ! Do you mean to say Oh, but the idea is 

absurd. You’ve been gambling at Monte Carlo! This’ll 
never do. Good Lord ! — what ? ” 

“I’m serious; I mean it.” 

“ You try and move the Cabinet ! ” laughed Raven- 
struther. “ Why, my dear Sangster, the land interest is 
ten times as strong as the brewers. We should lose our 
majority in a week — what? And if we had a majority of 
a hundred, the Lords would throw us out. The land ! No, 
that’s a question for the Mellennium. It’s not practical 
politics.” 

“ We’re only fiddling at present,” replied Sangster. 
“We can’t live on that. We’ve got to do something. Be- 
sides You threaten me with the Lords. But what 

would happen if I threatened the Lords with the people? 
Has that occurred to you ? ” 

“ Nothing would please me better, nothing in the world. 
But I don't see the people rising just yet to overthrow the 

Lords. My dear fellow ” 

But Sangster cut him short. “ You want me to deceive 
the people with this Licensing Bill. You think that is easy. 
I’m inclined to think it would be easier to get the people 
at our back with something rather more honest. I’m going 
to see the Prime Minister. I’m sick of shuffling. I want 
something done, something real!” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


257 


In language more statesmanlike and reasonable the Prime 
Minister made a very similar reply to Ravenstruther’s when 
Maurice suggested a Land Bill. Maurice left him with the 
unhappy vista before his eyes of a Licensing Bill, an Edu- 
cation Bill, a Welsh Disestablishment Bill, a Home Rule 
Bill, while real reform — real reform touching the lives of 
the people — was invisible even on a very vague and infi- 
nitely distant horizon. 

He was bitterly disappointed. It may be that the sudden 
change to London had something to do with it, or it may 
be that this political disappointment was also responsible, 
but certainly Maurice was in a very bad temper for a num- 
ber of weeks, much to the unhappiness of Phoebe. 

But he went into the provinces and made three great 
vigorous speeches on the drink question, which really re- 
vived the hopes of his party. He returned to London just 
before the assembling of Parliament in a pretty good conceit 
with himself. Wherever he went leaders of the party said 
to him, “ When you’re Prime Minister, we shall get things 
done,” and while he was in the provinces Maurice had felt 
that he was nearing his goal. But something happened soon 
after his return to London which dashed these hopes to 
the ground. 

The Liberal Party, at that time, had to give an impres- 
sion to the world of greater cheerfulness than really in- 
spired it. Although everybody knew that the Government 
could only get through the next session by a miracle, and 
although some of the opposition newspapers were already 
amusing themselves with forecasts of the next Conservative 
Cabinet, the Liberals decided that they would pull up all 
the blinds, light a great many candles, set a number of fid- 
dlers to work, and assure mankind that they never had felt 
so happy and victorious in their lives. 

Which means that the Session opened with very much 
more social gayety than usual — all the great Whig ladies 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


258 

flinging their doors wide to the proletariat, putting on 
their finest diamonds, ordering an immense number of sin- 
gularly expensive robes, and setting their cooks to work 
as if all the hungry people in London were to be adequately 
fed at last. 

The Tory ladies replied to this challenge. Hangers-on 
of this aristocratic party found themselves going from 
earl’s house to duke's house, and from duke’s house to 
marquis’s house, meeting archbishops, ambassadors, judges, 
and millionaires wherever they went; rubbing shoulders 
with those honorable patricians who represent the Old 
Guard of English aristocracy; and eating, drinking, and 
talking with men and women of the greatest power and the 
most impressive charm, from morning to night. 

It was a duel of fashionable women. The two great par- 
ties in the State, who appear on the hustings as the obedient 
servants of democracy, were now fighting with the gloves 
off in the privacy of their own domain. Beautiful duchesses 
bared their exquisite shoulders in this contest, and count- 
esses of the strictest and most rigid sect smiled amiably 
upon the smallest parvenu who could help their party. 
Every day the newspapers were full of these contending 
receptions — columns of great names, columns of uniforms 
and dresses, columns describing the floral decorations, the 
courses, and the wines, and the orchestras. The trades- 
men rubbed their hands with delight; the theatrical agents 
were at their wits’ end to supply both parties; and fash- 
ionable mothers with marriageable daughters felt that the 
heavens were positively raining husbands. But the poor, 
the wretched, and the starving were not a penny the better 
off for all this vast expenditure of money. 

Now, it was at a great reception given by the Prime 
Minister that Maurice received the shock which dashed his 
hopes to the ground. He was there in his Windsor uni- 
form, looking extremely romantic, and feeling himself 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


259 


somewhat elated by the greetings he received, when he 
heard one great lady say to another — both of them very 
fat and nearly naked — “ He would be, if it wasn’t for his 
wife.” Something in this remark told him that he and 
Phoebe were the subjects of the conversation. He listened, 
and heard the other woman say : “ Let us thank Heaven, 
then, for his stupid wife. My dear, look at her! Like a 
housemaid ! ” 

Maurice glanced across the room and saw Phoebe sitting 
alone, crowds of people all round her, but no one troubling 
to speak to her. The isolation was complete. For the 
first time he observed an extraordinary difference in her 
appearance from the appearance of all the other women. 
He had approved of her determination years ago never to 
wear a low-necked dress; he remembered how he had re- 
garded the dresses of fashionable women in those days as 
immodest, shameless, brazen, ungodly; he knew that he 
had always been vaguely conscious of some difference in 
Phoebe’s dress on state occasions which was not merely 
a matter of neck ; but now, for the first time, he saw in what 
this difference really consisted. Phoebe was not wearing 
evening dress at all. She was wearing a dress, so it seemed 
to him, which might have been worn in chapel on Sunday. 

He felt vexed and disturbed. There were no diamonds 
in her hair; nor did he want them there; he was not even 
sure that he wanted her to wear a plume, a flower, a rib- 
bon in her hair ; but why on earth had she worn a walking- 
dress — a snuff-colored dress that had brown lace over the 
small square opening below the throat, the sleeves of which 
came down over the wrists, and which was without any 
suggestion of a train? Why did she sit there with so stiff 
an upper lip ? Why did she look so stupid and censorious ? 
Why did she suggest a housemaid ? 

In the midst of these angry questions, was the much 
more angry conviction that she stood in his way. He 


26 o 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


would be, if it wasn’t for his wife. What did that mean? 
Surely it meant that he would be the next Prime Minister 
if it were not for the social disqualifications of Phoebe. 

For the first time in his life he apprehended two bitter 
truths. He saw that to lead a Party a man must have social 
status. He saw that Phoebe was not the great lady he had 
once taken her to be. 

When these two thoughts rushed upon his mind he felt 
at once that he had known them for years. They did not 
come to him as revelations. They only emerged from the 
background of consciousness into the light and center of 
his apprehension. He felt angry with politics and angry 
with himself. The reception became suddenly a vain show, 
a wretched hypocrisy, a waste of precious time. The sound 
of laughter came to his ears from every side ; wherever he 
looked people were smiling: the man chattering at his side 
was endeavoring to be facetious. 

Maurice thought to himself, u We are tampering with 
democracy/’ 

Someone touched his arm, and he turned round to find 
himself face to face with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
Francis Martindale. The Chancellor was his strongest 
rival. 

“ You look bored,” said Martindale. 

I am. 

“ But we are working ourselves up into a fine condition 
of Dutch courage. Where is your wife? I haven’t seen 
her to-night.” 

“ She is sitting over there.” 

“ Ah, yes ; I see. My dear Sangster, she looks really 
more bored than you ! I must go and cheer her up.” 

As Mr. Martindale left him, Lady Claudia Martindale, 
his wife, looking like some glorious queen of fairy tale, 
crossed in front of Maurice, with a man at each side of 
her. She looked at him, smiled, and then turned, extending 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 261 

her hand. “ You look much better for the Riviera,” she 
said. “ Did you win a lot of money?” 

“ No,” he answered ; “ I only lost a lot of time.” 

“ Where is Mrs. Sangster?” she asked. “She did not 
go with you, did she ? ” 

“ No ; she stayed at home. The Chancellor is talking 
to her.” 

“You mustn’t speak of losing time,” she said. “Your 
holiday has done you no end of good. Really, you look 
splendid. You’ll feel like a giant in the House of Com- 
mons. Your speeches have been admirable — admirable.” 

“ Shall we need giants ? ” he asked. 

“ More than we possess,” she replied, lowering her voice, 
and laughing softly. 

“ I should have thought that we stood in need of thimble- 
riggers.” 

She looked at him intently for a moment. “ I’m rather 
afraid that is true. But courage is needed even there. We 
must shuffle valorously ! ” 

She passed on, and he looked after her for a moment, 
feeling that this beautiful and elegant creature was a greater 
rival than the Chancellor. 

“ Well, sir ! ” said a familiar voice at his side, and a hand 
grasped his arm with the intimacy of an old friendship. 

“ What are you doing here ? ” he asked. 

Girshel laughed. “In the odor of sanctity, eh? Well, 
you’ve been away. You don’t know what has been hap- 
pening. I’ll tell you later. My dear boy,” drawing closer 
and whispering up at Maurice’s ear, “ I and the Prime 
Minister are bosom friends ! Hush ! Not a word to a 
soul ! I’ll tell you later.” 

When Maurice departed with Phoebe — and he had a 
very uneasy feeling as he passed through the crowded 
rooms with his wife — Girshel followed him, and on the 
stairs proposed that he should drive home with them. 


262 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ Well,” he said in the carriage, addressing Phoebe, “ what 
do you think of English society? How do you like it? 
Grand, isn’t it? Did you ever see such a harem of beauti- 
ful women in all your born days? And the arrogance of 
them — the high-bred, disdainful, insolent arrogance — what 
do you think of that? Laugh! I’ve been laughing all the 
evening. I said to my friend Ravenstruther, 4 Look, these 
are our rulers,’ and by George! he agreed. Women rule 
politics. Petticoat government — it’s the fact of our na- 
tional life. If I were still a Socialist the first thing I should 
do would be to guillotine fashionable women. Think of all 
those beautiful necks — slish — and the tiaras and false hair 
tumbling into the sawdust ! ” He laughed violently, rubbed 
his hands vigorously, stamped with his feet, and then be- 
gan feeling for his cigar-case. 

“ I think most of those women,” said Phoebe, “ ought to 
be ashamed of themselves.” 

“So naked, eh?” laughed Girshel. “Naked and un- 
ashamed ! But, my dear lady, what would you ? It’s the 
world, it’s the world.” 

“ They call themselves Liberals,” began Phoebe. 

“ Pah ! ” exclaimed Girshel ; “ you don’t suppose they 
give a thought to politics ! ” He bit the end from his cigar, 
and lowered the window to spit it out of his mouth. 
“Those high-born dames are as Tory as any duchess on 
the other side,” he continued, striking the match. “ It’s 
only a game with them — a social game. Patronage, that’s 
what they like.” He lit his cigar, and dropped the match 
on the floor of the carriage. “ They’ve got to be on one 
side or the other — and there’s more room on the Liberal 
side than on the Tory. Bless you, they haven’t got half 
a principle between them. Think ! pah, they only think of 
their flesh and their diamonds.” 

“ I always hate these receptions,” said Phoebe. “ They 
depress me.” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


263 


“ Then why don’t you stop at home ? ” 

“ Maurice says I ought to attend them.” 

Girshel looked at Maurice. “ Why ? ” he demanded. 

“ It’s expected/’ answered the Minister. 

“ Nonsense ! If I were you,” said Girshel, addressing 
Phoebe, “ I should stay at home and rock the cradle, darn 
the stockings, and play with the children. You’re not going 
to hold your own with women like that.” 

“ You haven’t told me yet,” said Maurice, “ why 
you ” 

“ Later, dear boy, later,” replied Girshel, laughing. Then, 
leaning forward to Phoebe, “ You strike, Mrs. Sangster ! ” 
he said. “ Refuse to go. Say you aren’t one of that 
sort. The Liberal Party could do with one or two 
simple, domesticated, middle-class women. Ah, that it 
could!” 

Maurice said : “ A Minister’s wife must take her share 
in the social life of the party.” 

“ I agree,” said Girshel, “ if the Minister wants to boss 
the crowd. But you’re a Radical. You’ll never be Prime 
Minister. You won’t, dear boy, never; mark my words. 
Now, if you were the head of a Radical Party, Mrs. Sang- 
ster would be just the very woman for your purpose. She 
would take the lead of a Radical Party — mothers’ meet- 
ings, girls’ friendly societies, chapel bazaars, and confer- 
ences of social workers. She’d do that very well. But 
you don’t mean to tell me that you expect her to take the 
lead of the Liberal Party? Why, look at the women you 
saw to-night. Thoroughbred racehorses aren’t in it with 
them. Can you see them tripping into your parlor? Can 
you see Mrs. Sangster receiving them in your front hall?” 
He laughed noisily, opening his mouth to its widest, show- 
ing all his teeth, and tapping Phoebe on the knee in the ex- 
cess of his hilarity. 

Maurice said coldly : “ You exaggerate the power of 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


264 

those women. And you exaggerate their appearance. The 
dressmaker and the hairdresser ” 

“ Oh, rot ! dear boy, rot ! ” 

“ But, Maurice,’' exclaimed Phoebe, “ you wouldn’t like 
me to dress like those women ? ” 

“ Rot ! dear boy, rot ! ” 

“ I should like you to take your proper place in the 
party.” 

“ Do you mean that I ought to dress differently ? ” 

“ We won’t discuss the matter.” 

“ I can see how it is,” said Girshel seriously. “ Your 
husband, Mrs. Sangster, is out for big game. He’s like 
me; the world has caught him at last. He wants power, 
he wants position, he wants rank. And he means to drag 
you after him. Now, listen: you’ll have to make up your 
mind. Either you’ll have to ” 

“ I beg you,” said Maurice, “ not to worry yourself about 
a matter which doesn’t concern you, and which you under- 
stand very imperfectly.” 

“ I’ve offended you, dear boy ! Sorry ! Sorry ! I didn’t 
mean to do that. Cheer up, Mrs. Sangster,” he said, lean- 
ing over to Phoebe. “ I’ll send my wife to see you ; she’s 
a wunner for high life.” 

Phoebe looked out of the carriage window with pain and 
perplexity in her eyes. She was horribly unhappy. 

Girshel said to Maurice, “ I’ll tell you about myself. 
You’re a busy man, and I daresay you won’t want me to 
come inside when we reach your house. I’ll tell you now. 
Look here; it’s like this. The world has caught you, and 
it has caught me. My boys are just going to school. Mrs. 
Girshel finds that she doesn't get on in society as well as 
she would like. I’m richer now than I was, a good bit; 
we live in a fine great house — you must come and see us — 
and two of my boys are going to Eton this year — Benjy 
and Samuel. Well, Mrs. Girshel thinks a title would make 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


265 

things easier for her — speed things up a bit. As for me, 
I don’t give a snap of the fingers for a title; but Mrs. Gir- 
shel wants one ; I want my boys to have the best start they 

can get, and so Well, I go to Ravenstruther. Party 

funds. Ten thousand pounds? I’m generous; the party 
is in a bad way; the brewers are putting up a big purse, 
things are looking black. I make it twenty thousand. Im- 
mense gratitude on the part of the Prime Minister. I dine 
with him. He is encouraged by my views. No mention 
of my gift to the party funds. He meets me as a Lib- 
eral, and takes counsel with me as a Liberal. But Raven- 
struther knows! Well, there you have it. That’s why I’m 
coming round to the Whigs. But wait till next year, dear 
boy. You’ll find me as big a Radical as ever.” 

“ And then they’ll put you in the House of Lords ? ” said 
Maurice. 

“ Quite so, quite so ! ” cried Girshel, and laughed till the 
tears came into his eyes. 


V 

Maurice was in his study, sitting over the fire. He 
was still wearing his Windsor uniform. He had drawn 
a small upright chair to the hearth, and sat leaning for- 
ward, with his feet on the fender, his elbows on his knees, 
his hands stretched over the few flames of a dying fire. 

“ Words ” had passed between him and Phoebe. She 
had asked him, directly they entered the house, whether he 
was displeased with her. He had answered that he thought 
she might do more for him. She had replied that she 
looked after his children, cared for his house, and toiled 
every week to save his money — was that not enough? He 
had replied, “ You do not understand ! ” 

When she was gone, he drew the chair to the fire and 


266 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


sat down to think. He saw that the woman was right who 
said that he might be Prime Minister if it was not for 
Phoebe. But he saw also that a powerful section in the 
party did not want him to be Prime Minister. Let us thank 
Heaven, then, for his stupid wife. 

How everything had conspired to drive this fact sharply 
home to his mind ! Lady Claudia had sailed across the 
bows of his ambition, beautiful as a queen, proud as a 
conqueror. And Girshel ! Girshel had come to remind him 
that he was in the Cabinet on sufferance — a Radical, a 
Democrat, an upstart, an alien! They did not want him. 
They made use of him, but they disliked him. In the coun- 
try he had a following; he was powerful enough to split 
the party; he could tumble the Government to-morrow — 
but it would be all the same in the end. Headquarters 
would not have him. London would never surrender to 
him. Society hated him. 

He had almost forgotten Phoebe, so completely was his 
mind occupied by the thought of his own unhappy posi- 
tion in the party, when the door opened very quietly, and, 
turning his head, he saw her standing there, closing the 
door, and facing towards him with trepidation and appeal 
in her eyes. 

She wore a long, dark blue dressing-grown of flannel, 
with red felt slippers on her feet. Her hair was plaited 
for the night, and the plaits were looped up over her 
ears. The shape of her head was quite visible, so vigor- 
ously had the hair been brushed back, so tightly had it been 
plaited, and so closely was it curled down at every point. 

“ Maurice ! ” 

He turned more round in his chair, and regarded her 
with astonishment. 

It seemed to him that her eyes had suddenly filled with 
terror, that she was trembling as if with cold, and that 
she was about to burst into tears. 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 267 

“ Maurice ! ” she cried again, slipping her fingers from 
the door-handle, and advancing a step towards him. 

“ What is it? ” he demanded. “ What is the matter? ” 

She uttered a little cry, hurried to his side, flung herself 
upon her knees, and pressed her face against him, sobbing 
bitterly. 

“ Phoebe ! ” he cried, putting his hand on her head. 
“ Why, Phoebe, what is the matter ? What has happened ? ” 

“ Oh, I’m so miserable, so miserable ! ” she wailed. 

“ Miserable ? What has made you miserable ? ” He 
thought how round and smooth was her head, and lowered 
his hand to her shoulder, patting there. “ Come,” he said, 
“ tell me. Why should you be miserable ? ” 

“Oh, I’m in your way; I know I am. Maurice, I will 
try, I really will try, to be like the other women. You 
want me to be like the other women. You said you did. 
I didn't know it before. I would have tried if I had known 
it. Oh, Maurice, don't be cross with me ! I'm so wretched, 
so miserable. You don't know how miserable I am.” 

She began to sob again, and he leaned over her, saying 
as cheerfully as he could: 

“ You are distressing yourself without any cause, 
Phoebe.” 

“ Oh, no, no, no ! I know I'm not,” she cried, drying 
her eyes, mastering her sobs, and raising her face to him, 
all red and swollen, and wet with tears. “ I know you want 
me to be like other women. I know you think I’m ugly, 
and dull, and frumpish. You wish I was like Miss Kings- 
ford. You wish I was like Lady Claudia. You want me 
to be beautiful, and clever, and fashionable. I'm in your 
way. You want to be Prime Minister, don't you? — and you 
think I would not do for a Prime Minister's wife, as Mr. 
Girshel said. Don’t you ? Don't you ? ” 

“ Now, be reasonable and quiet,” he replied. “ Dry your 
eyes and let me tell you what is in my mind.” 


268 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


Poor Phoebe was worked up to a state of pitiable terror 
and hysterical dread. 

“ But you won’t let us drift apart, will you ? ” she cried, 
praying to him. “ Whatever happens, you won’t let us drift 
apart? Think of the children! Suppose I should fail. 
Suppose I spoil your career. Oh, Maurice, Maurice, you 
loved me once. We’ve been so happy together. And the 
children — think of the children ! ” 

“ Why won’t you let me explain matters ? ” he demanded. 
“ I tell you that you are distressing yourself quite un- 
necessarily.’’ 

“ Oh, but how coldly you speak ! Once you would have 
caught me in your arms and kissed me, and comforted 
me, and promised me anything I asked.” 

“ Phoebe, Phoebe ! ” he remonstrated, trying to pacify her. 

“ Ah, but a woman knows ! Ever since you became a 
Cabinet Minister you’ve been different. I’ve seen it. I’ve 
tried to forget it. I’ve prayed, I’ve prayed, that you might 
come back to me. Think how happy we were in the old 
days ! All that is gone now. It will never come back. I’m 
getting old. I’ve been too anxious about the children. 
We’ve drifted apart. You don’t care for me now. You 
don’t admire me. You don’t think I’m the one woman 
in the world any longer. If I was to die, you’d marry again. 
You’d marry Miss Kingsford — someone who’d help you 
in your career. You know you would! Wouldn’t you? 
Tell me! You’d marry again, wouldn’t you?” 

“ Now, Phoebe,” he said sharply, “ you must restrain 
yourself. It is impossible to talk to you in such a mood 
as this. What has happened to you? . . . For the life of 
me I can’t understand. Now, listen ” 

“ But you’d marry again, wouldn’t you ? ” she cried, 
grasping his hands. 

“ How can you ask such a preposterous question ? You’re 
really beside yourself. For mercy’s sake be rational and 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


269 

decent. I mean to say Now, really, you must listen 

to me. Do you hear, Phoebe? Pve something to say, and 
I mean to say it.” 

He disengaged his hands, rose to his feet, lifted her up, 
and made her sit in the chair. 

“ You’ll catch cold,” he said, and stooped to the fire, 
dragging the coals together. “ You’d better let me give 
you a little whisky.” 

“ Oh, no, no ! I couldn’t ! ” 

“ As a medicine. You’re shivering with cold.” 

“No; I’m not cold.” 

He placed more coal on the fire, and then went to the 
table, poured himself out some whisky, and took a cigarette 
from the box. 

“ Now, Phoebe, let me tell you very briefly how matters 
stand,” he said, and raised the tumbler to his lips. When 
he had finished drinking, he came round to the hearth, 
placed the tumbler on the mantelpiece, and struck a match 
for his cigarette. “ I want you to understand the truth of 
things and to recall your excellent common sense while I 
am speaking.” He lighted the cigarette, threw the match 
into the fire, and leaned his back against the mantelpiece, 
looking down at her head. “ Now, to begin with ” 

She put up her hand to interrupt him. “ Wait a minute, 
Maurice,” she said, “ this fire will never burn up. Let me 
go downstairs and get some paraffin; I know where it’s 
kept. The servants have gone to bed, but I can find it quite 
easily.” 

As she went to the door she stopped, and turned round 
to face him. “ I’m so sorry I was silly,” she said ; “ I 
couldn’t help crying. I didn’t mean to cry, I promise you.” 
She tried to smile, and this smile made her look so very 
comic and ugly — for her face was puffed and red and 
marked with tear-stains — that Maurice had difficulty to 
restrain a shudder. 


270 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ You had better let me go with you,” he said. 

“ What ! In your Windsor uniform? ” 

It was her little effort to be cheerful, her enormous 
effort to behave, and she laughed. Poor Phoebe ! 

“ Think what Lady Claudia would say if she saw you 
coming up our back stairs with a teacup of paraffin in your 
hand ! ” 

She laughed again. 

“ No; you stay and keep warm. I sha’n’t be a minute.” 

He remembered an occasion early in their married life 
when he had risen from the breakfast-table to fetch the 
butter which had been forgotten, and how outraged Phoebe 
had been by such an action on his part. She said to him : 

“ The master of the house going to the kitchen ! I never 
heard of such a thing. Ring the bell, and I'll tell the maid 
to bring it.” 

He remembered how greatly he had admired her on that 
occasion; how he had regarded her imperiousness as an 
indication of the highest breeding. 

He drank the rest of the whisky, and sat down in an 
armchair besicfe the fire, smoking his cigarette, and feeling 
exceedingly unhappy and annoyed. 

“ There ! ” she exclaimed, coming back into the room. 
“ I haven’t been long, have I ? ” She walked in a self- 
conscious way, holding the teacup in front of her, the other 
hand keeping her gown together, taking very small steps, 
sliding her feet along, as it were, and slightly shaking her- 
self from side to side. 

“ I can’t be very jealous,” she laughed, “ to appear be- 
fore you like this, can I? You look like a Prince of Ro- 
mance, and I am like a lodging-house keeper ! ” 

She distributed the oil carefully over the coal, and placed 
the poker upright before the bars. 

“ Now, you shall tell me what you think,” she said, and 
put the empty cup in the fender. “ Look, it’s burning 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


271 


splendidly now.” Before she sat down she went to him, 
kissed him with a laugh, and said cheerfully : “ You do 
love me, don’t you ? ” 

“ Of course I do,” he answered, smelling paraffin. 

“ I’ve been a good mother, haven’t I — even if I’m not so 
brilliant as Lady Claudia?” 

“ You’ve been the best mother in the world.” 

“ Anyway, I’ve always taught the children to look up 
to you as their hero. Oh, Maurice, you don’t know how 
they worship you ! Baby said to me last night : ‘ Daddy 
would be King, wouldn’t he, mummy, if there wasn’t a 
Queen ? ’ They had been disputing as to whether you would 
be President or King in the event of any change ! ” 

He smiled, and threw away his cigarette. “ She’s a 
charming child,” he said. “ They’re all charming. Hum- 
phry’s going to be clever, too; I’m sure of it.” 

“ He means to be Prime Minister ! ” she said. “ Do you 
know they have debates in the nursery? Really, you ought 
to come up one day. Nurse and I can hardly keep our 
faces ; they’re too funny for words. Humphry tries to 
copy you. He considers himself a wonderftil orator.” 

“ Fancy ; how amusing ! ” 

“ Little Mildred was so funny yesterday.” 

“ Was she?” 

“ She brought me a letter from her cripple. You know 
they belong to the Cripples’ Guild, and write a letter once 
a week to a poor little cripple living in the slums ? ” 

“ Yes ; I remember.” 

“ Well, this letter from her cripple ended up : ‘ Baby is 
very fat, and says “ Bup,” which mother thinks is a sign 
of great intelligence.’ Mildred read it out to me, and said : 
‘ Now, mummy, I don’t consider that’s a very high sign 
of intelligence, do you ? ’ so gravely and seriously ” 

“ How very amusing ! ” 

“ Oh, but you ought to see those letters ; they really are 




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272 

funny. Lenn’s cripple wrote to him just before Christmas, 
ending up a very cheerful letter, ‘ Well, no more news now, 
I think,’ and then, after the signature, came: ‘ P.S. — I for- 
got to say that father has gone into a lunatic asylum, and, 
of course, it has upset us very much ’ ” 

“ In a postscript ! Good Heavens, what a world it is ! ” 

He rose from his chair, and went to the table for a 
cigarette. 

“ But I mustn’t run on, as your father used to say. Tell 
me, Maurice, what you want to talk about. Look at the 
fire ; isn’t it burning splendidly ? ” She stooped down, 
picked up a piece of paper from the grate, lighted it, and 
held it up to him for his cigarette. “ I’m glad you smoke ; 
I’m sure it’s good for you,” she said. 

Maurice sat down in the arm-chfiir, crossed his elegant 
legs, and began to speak in a slow, quiet, very earnest 
manner, looking into the fire. Phoebe, for her part, leaned 
slightly forward, with her hands between her spread knees, 
her feet, in their red felt slippers, far apart on the brass 
fender, her eyes directed to the flames. 

“ I am going to tell you Cabinet secrets,” Maurice began ; 
and from that he proceeded with his tale, in a solemn 
and troubled fashion, which had a very great effect upon 
Phoebe. He told her that he had enemies in the Govern- 
ment, that it was the intention of those enemies to limit 
his influence, and to prevent him from becoming Prime 
Minister ; no more Radicals would be admitted to the Cab- 
inet, and thus the evolution of the Liberal Party would be 
checked disastrously. 

“ It is not for myself I am working,” he said firmly; “ I 
am working for democracy. Liberalism is doomed unless 
it moves on to Radicalism. I am the only man in the 
Cabinet who can get rid of Whiggery, but I can only set 
up Radicalism if I am Prime Minister.” 

And then he told her that to consolidate his position he 


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273 


must make his house the centre of a group. It was not 
enough to go about the country making speeches, not 
enough to work hard at his office, not enough to be con- 
stantly in attendance at the House of Commons; he must 
exert a social influence. The Radicals of the party and 
their wives must come to regard his house as the center 
of their propaganda, as the rallying point of their forces. 
“ And,” he concluded, “ we must persuade the most ad- 
vanced men in the Government, and their wives, to come 
to us — to come here to this house and regard us, you and 
me, as the heads of the party.” 

She listened intently. # It seemed to her that everything 
he said was true and just. She felt, moreover, that she 
really could be what he wanted her to be, that she could 
help him to do what he rightly and nobly desired to do, 
and she said to him at the end : “ I will try and be a better 
wife — I mean a better wife to you as a politician. I am 
not very clever, and we are not rich enough to make a great 
show in the world; but I think I could be useful in giving 
small parties here, and I am sure our parties will be much 
more comfortable than a crush like to-night.” 

He suggested that she should cultivate people, go more 
into society, visit the theaters, and read the books of which 
everybody was talking. “ I think,” he said, “ that you are 
clever, and I am quite sure that you only feel yourself 
rather out of it at receptions because you give too much 
of your time to domesticity. And then, dress; it is only 
because you have been so unselfish in trying to save money 
that you don’t look as showy as the other women. Mind 
you, I don’t at all want you to be a fashionable doll ; but I 
should like to see you wearing dresses that are rather more 
in keeping with surroundings like to-nights. And I am 
quite sure you would look as well as any of the other 
women, and be able to hold your own with them, if you 
did this.” 


274 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


Phoebe dared not cross his will, but her heart misgave 
her. She pretended that she agreed with everything he 
said, and promised to begin her reformation at once; but 
in her heart she was filled with grief, with mourning, and 
with anxiety. This change, she told herself, meant farewell 
to the nursery, farewell to motherhood, farewell to quiet 
days, and farewell to peace of soul. “ He wants me to go 
to the theater ! ” she thought. “ What would father say 
to that — father, who gives me so much money? He thinks 
I shall look like Lady Claudia; that it is all a matter of 
dress. He doesn’t know that some women can look beau- 
tiful in a rag, and others plain in the robes of a queen.” 

They parted that night on the best of terms ; but Maurice 
sat for another hour very gloomily over the fire, and poor 
little suburban Phoebe made her pillow wet with tears. 


VI 

One day, very soon after this conference between hus- 
band and wife, Mrs. Girshel came to call on Phoebe. 

She was very short, very fat, and very jolly. She was 
one of those Jewesses who love eating, and who detest 
seriousness. She had a large fat mouth and a large fat 
chin, as well as the orthodox large fat nose, and she car- 
ried this homoeopathy all over her body, for she had a 
large fat chest, a large fat stomach, large fat arms, large 
fat ears, large fat eyelids, and large fat feet; in fact, one 
hardly noticed her nose at all. To have placed her beside 
a Greek statue would have been a very effective challenge 
to the theory of evolution, and to have set her down to 
dinner with a Parsi lady or a Chinese peasant-woman would 
have been an awkward spectacle for the out-and-out be- 
lievers in Western Civilization. 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


275 


But Mrs. Girshel had a kind heart; her children had 
only to sulk and kick the legs of her best tables to be loaded 
with the most deadly chocolates. Her friends could never 
come too often to luncheon, to tea, and to dinner. She 
was always making parties for the theater, the exhibition 
at Earl’s Court, and the music-hall. She would take ten 
or fifteen people down to Brighton for the week-end; she 
bestowed the most elaborate and costly presents upon her 
friends; she gave dinner-parties in hotels and restaurants; 
she sat up to all hours of the night playing cards ; she per- 
mitted smoking in her drawing-room ; and she kept at least 
four more servants than was necessary for the work of her 
establishment. It may be said that her servants adored 
her to her face, and called her very vulgar names behind 
her back. 

She arrived before Phoebe’s door in a gorgeous red and 
black chariot, with enormous C-springs, and a coat-of-arms 
on the panels which would have blinded Sir Philip Sidney. 
There were numerous bright-colored cushions at her back 
and a superb rug over her knees. Her coachman and foot- 
man wore the heaviest fur capes in London, and they had 
cockades on their hats, which were flat-brimmed. As for 
the tall horses, with scarlet rosettes at the side of their 
browbands, Royalty might have envied their arched necks, 
their high shoulders, and the way they stood with stretched 
legs before a front-door or a shop-window. 

Mrs. Girshel entered the drawing-room with a fat pug 
in her arms. Phoebe almost laughed when she saw the ap- 
parition of this little, tubby, corpulent person, all wrapped 
up in furs, with the face of a staring pug under her chin. 
Lady and pug were both breathing noisily. Their faces 
seemed close together; the protuberant eyes of both had 
something of the same expression. “ Really,” thought 
Phoebe, “ it might be mother and son ! ” 

“ My husband told me to come and see you,” said Mrs. 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


276 

Girshel. “ I knew you wouldn’t mind me bringing the dog. 
He thought I could help you; he said you wanted cheer- 
ing up. He’s all right ! you needn’t worry. He knows how 
to behave himself; lie’s only just sniffing round to see if 
there’s any other dog on the premises. Benjy always 
thinks I can cheer people up ; I don’t know why, I’m sure, 
unless it’s because I’m one of those who never worry about 
anything. Come here, Bertie; come here, you naughty 
darling! Well, how are you, Mrs. Sangster? I’ve met 
your husband, you know. Hasn’t he got on, just! but I 
wonder if it’s worth it. A lot of worry, I should 
think. 

They talked for a quarter of an hour, and then Mrs. 
Girshel said: “I’m just going to order a couple of little 
frocks for next week. Would you like to come with me? 
Pop on a hat, and I’ll drive you round. We’ll go and have 
tea somewhere together.” 

Phoebe attempted to refuse, but Mrs. Girshel would not 
listen. She cross-examined Phoebe, discovered there was 
no valid reason why she should not spend the afternoon 
away from home, and fairly pushed her out of the room. 
“ Now, be quick, and I’ll wait here,” she said, “ and see 
what I can do to improve your drawing-room.” 

It was Phoebe’s first introduction to a fashionable cos- 
tumer’s establishment. The carriage stopped before a 
fine door in a side-street, and Mrs. Girshel, with Bertie 
under her arm, led the way down a broad corridor and 
up a flight of stairs, which she found very trying, to the 
first floor. A door stood open, and as they entered, Phoebe 
saw a large room with chairs round the walls and no 
furniture in the center. She had scarcely entered this 
room, when she saw a sight which quite made her start 
— one of the models, with her hair dressed in most ex- 
travagant fashion, her eyes darkened, her lips reddened, 
her face powdered, walked — no, not walked, minced — 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


277 

across the room in a dress that was the very latest dazzle- 
ment from Paris. 

Mrs. Girshel dropped Bertie on to the floor, grabbed at 
her lorgnette, opened the glasses, and advanced into the 
room, staring after the model. “ Now, isn’t that chief she 
exclaimed, with great enthusiasm. 

The room was L-shaped, and Phoebe discovered, on 
turning the corner, that the bigger part was very well 
filled with customers. Ladies were sitting, in fact, nearly 
all round the walls, and in the center of the room three 
models, who looked exactly like three cocottes out of the 
street, were gliding and swaying on their course, glancing 
at the ladies superciliously, stopping when ordered, turning 
their backs, lifting their arms, and advancing to the cus- 
tomers that the dresses might be handled and more closely 
examined. 

One of the heads of the establishment, a jovial-looking 
Frenchwoman, came to Mrs. Girshel, and greeted her in 
friendly fashion, shaking her hand, and calling her Madame 
Girshel. Mrs. Girshel presented Phoebe, and Phoebe was 
much relieved to observe that this happy Frenchwoman did 
not cast disdainful glances at her frock. 

When they were seated, Mrs. Girshel addressed the 
Frenchwoman in very bad French, sotto voce, and Phoebe 
was too distracted by what she saw to hear these remarks. 
It seemed to Phoebe that the place was really wicked and 
bad. She was “ flabbergasted,” as she said afterwards, that 
ladies, real ladies, could sit in that room and watch those 
women, those positively awf ul women, going backwards and 
forwards, wearing different dresses every time. And yet 
Phoebe had to admit to herself that those positively awful 
women, in spite of their rakish hair, their painted faces, and 
their insolent looks, had very beautiful figures: and she 
found herself at last taking considerable interest in the 
dresses they wore. 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


278 

“ Just look,” she exclaimed to Mrs. Girshel, “ at that 
woman’s red heels — why, they must be six inches high ! I 
never saw such things in my life ! ” 

“That’s to make them walk chic!” explained Madame 
Girshel. 

“ But how they walk ! They remind me of camels at 
the Zoo. Oh, look, one of them’s coming here! Did you 
ever? It looks as if her head will roll off, and her waist 
snap in two. Well, I never did. ...” 

The manageress had called the girl, and this exceedingly 
pretty maid now stood obediently before Madame Girshel, 
her body still seeming to quiver as if it were made of wires. 

Phoebe, having stared at the little painted, insolent face, 
could scarcely prevent herself from laughing when she 
discovered that Mrs. Girshel was actually contemplating 
the purchase of this frock — this extravagantly beautiful 
frock, which could only be worn with grace by a tall, 
slender woman. 

“ Combien ? ” demanded Mrs. Girshel. 

“ Forty-seven guinea,” replied the manageress. “ Very 
sheap, very sheap, indeed. Just what would suit you. 
The very thing. Look, how chic ! ” 

“ Je vous donnerai forty-two guineas,” said Mrs. Girshel. 

“Impossible, Madame, im-pos -sible! I tell you” — 
whispered in great confidence — “ this dress would be fifty 
guinea to anybody but you ! ” 

“ Pas de tout ! Nonsense ! ” 

“ Nonsense — nonsense — nonsense ! ” laughed the French- 
woman. “Ha, you always say that. Nonsense! But, 
mon dieu ! it is the truth. Look, you are a very good cus- 
tomer, Madame Girshel; we always give you best terms; 
and I tell you, to anybody else I ask fifty guinea. There! 
The price to you is forty-seven guinea. No less. No! Not 
a penny.” 

“Eh, bien. Montrez-moi quelque chose differente.” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


279 

Other models were examined, more spirited bidding took 
place, and neither party would yield. 

Phoebe was amused. 

The frocks seemed to her, some of them at least, ex- 
tremely beautiful; she liked watching the models walk to 
the far end of the smaller room, go behind a screen, and 
presently emerge in a new robe. She enjoyed watching the 
customers, who, for the most part, were rather fat, study- 
ing these sinuous models through their lorgnettes with the 
greatest attention, and talking among themselves with the 
volubility almost of market-women. 

She was rather alarmed when Mrs. Girshel insisted that 
she should try on the jacket of a dress, but she had to 
yield, and when she looked in the glass she felt that the 
dress would undoubtedly suit her. The Frenchwoman 
said that madame would become a dress like that very well ; 
the present dress she was wearing did not set madame off 
to advantage — it made her look too old; madame should 
wear fawns, and the skirts should be cut in such a way, 
the coats should be like this one. 

Phoebe, who felt that all the models must be laughing 
at her and all the customers staring at her, was very glad to 
get out of the jacket and resume her seat against the wall. 

Mrs. Girshel was still bargaining with the Frenchwoman, 
when Lady Claudia Martindale entered the room. She 
looked superb, and walked with a languorous indifference, 
her eyebrows raised, her lips pouting with disdain. Phoebe 
started at sight of her, but Lady Claudia did not recognize 
the Home Secretary’s wife. She walked to the other side 
of the room, and sat down next to an ugly old woman, 
who greeted her with cordiality and was soon laughing 
and talking to Lady Claudia, indifferent to the models. 

“ That’s Lady Claudia Martindale,” said Mrs. Girshel. 
Then, giving a nudge with her elbow against the knee of 
the Frenchwoman, she asked, “ Who is she talking to ? ” 


28 o 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


The Frenchwoman stooped down and said, “ The 
Duchess of Worcestershire.” 

Phoebe said : “ You’d never think they were enemies, 
would you ? ” 

“ Enemies ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Girshel. “ Are they ? How 
do you know that ? ” 

“ Well, Lady Claudia is one of our great hostesses, and 
the Duchess of Worcestershire is a leader of the Tories. 
I didn’t know they were on speaking terms.” 

“ Oh, political enemies ! ” laughed Mrs. Girshel ; “ that’s 
nothing! ” And she glanced up at the Frenchwoman, who 
didn’t understand, as if to apologize for Phoebe’s simplicity. 

At that moment Bertie, who was lying complacently at 
his mistress’s feet, contemptuously examining the models 
as they passed, emitted a particularly loud snort. Lady 
Claudia turned her head and glanced across the room. She 
saw Phoebe, started slightly, and was just about to rise and 
cross the room to her, when she caught sight of Mrs. 
Girshel. She contented herself with a nod and a smile, 
and turned once more to the Duchess. 

After an hour in this establishment Mrs. Girshel rose, 
gathered Bertie into her arms, and waddled off without 

having bought anything. “ I’m going straight to ’s,” 

she said, naming a well-known Regent Street milliner. 

The Frenchwoman laughed contemptuously. “As if 
madame could get there anything worthy of her figure! 

Pooh, I am not afraid of ! Go there, and see what 

you see! Tell me next time you come! Au revoir, 
madame, au revoir.” 

Going down the stairs, Mrs. Girshel stopped, and said to 
Phoebe, winking one of her fat eyelids, “ When I get home 
there’ll be a telegram for me, saying I can have the dresses 
at my price. She knows, bless you, I shan’t buy anything 
at ’s.” 

Nevertheless, they went to ’s, and Mrs. Girshel 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


281 


bought two splendid hats for Phoebe, which she insisted 
upon giving her, and also an opera cloak, which was really 
extremely handsome, but too handsome, perhaps, for 
Phoebe. Then they drove off to a fashionable restaurant 
and had tea together. 

Mrs. Girshel was not an eloquent woman, but there was 
something really convincing in the brusque, downright, and 
cheerful manner in which she expressed her opinions. 
Phoebe might have thought her a very vulgar, even a very 
wicked woman, if she had not been so anxious to please 
Maurice. As it was, she thought that Mrs. Girshel was 
“ common,” that she was given to the world, and that she 
was certainly not a person of whom her father or Aunt 
Mildred would approve; but she could not help feeling all 
the same that this old woman was very good-hearted, and 
knew a great deal about the world, and might possibly help 
her in the perilous work of setting up her Radical salon. 

She thought of Lady Claudia’s nod, and that put her 
into something of a fighting mood. She told herself that 
Lady Claudia was a hypocrite and a snob, too; she deter- 
mined that she would make herself a rival to this disdainful 
beauty who preferred talking to an ugly old Tory duchess 
rather than the wife of a Minister who sat in the very same 
Cabinet as her own husband. “ I dare say,” thought 
Phoebe, “ she’ll guess from seeing me this afternoon that 
I’m going in for society; she’ll hate me, she’ll try to fight 
me down; but I’ll stand up to her.” Poor little Phoebe! 

“ I shall be giving more parties this session,” she told 
Mrs. Girshel. “ I hope you and Mr. Girshel will come. I 
want to make my house one of the rallying points for the 
party.” 

“You must let me help you to put your drawing-room 
right,” replied the old woman. “ It’s dreadful now. Oh, 
shocking! You want a rich gold paper, embossed, and a 
good heavy lincrusta on the ceiling, and lighter carpets, 


282 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


and more gilt in your furniture. Benjy knows where you 
can get furniture at 33 per cent, discount. I’ll take you 
there.” 

Next day a frock arrived for Phoebe from the great 
French dressmaker, with a card saying that it was sent by 
Madame Girshel. 

And before noon Phoebe and Mrs. Girshel were driving 
about London together, buying furniture and talking 
worldly wisdom. 

That night Phoebe should have dined at Clapham, but 
she sent a telegram instead. She made one of a party at 
the Trocadero Restaurant, and went on with Mrs. Girshel 
to a comic opera at the Gaiety Theater. 

When she got home she found a parcel of “ the latest ” 
novels in the drawing-room, which she had ordered from 
Mudie’s. 

It was Mr. Grant Allen who sent her to sleep. 


VII 

It was not only a most perilous session — it was the 
dreariest in living memory. The Government was skating 
on the thinnest of thin ice, but cutting so odd a figure, 
instead of the gymnastic and exciting 8, that the public 
did not care whether they went through or not. And if 
the country was bored, the House of Commons, which 
perhaps reflects the country only on these occasions, was 
bored too. 

There was a growing feeling of discontent among ad- 
vanced Liberals. Maurice found himself in the unhappy 
position of sharing their feeling and yet being forced to 
frown upon them with the official frown necessary for 
discipline. He was a member of the Government; it was 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


283 

his duty and his interest to pretend that this dull and useless 
Licensing Bill was a measure of the very greatest impor- 
tance, and officially, at least, he had to censure the extrem- 
ists of his party. 

The result of this defection, as they regarded it, was 
serious for Maurice. The Radicals doubted his sincerity, 
and began to look about for another and a bolder leader. 
They said that Sangster was only a further illustration of 
the evil effects of high office on political principles. It was 
impossible for them to fight under such a man. He was 
a beggar on horseback, a climber who had forgotten the 
ladder. 

More than once Maurice forced the question of resigna- 
tion. He was not in the least insincere; he was merely a 
practical man of affairs, who realized the full difficulties of 
his situation. If he resigned, Radicalism would suffer a 
defeat in the Cabinet. If he put himself at the head of the 
discontented Radicals he would split the Party of Progress, 
and let in the Party of Reaction. It must be some years, 
he told himself, before Radicalism could form a Govern- 
ment ; was it not, then, the highest wisdom to remain where 
he was, leaving the Whigs and ready to open the gates of 
the citadel to the invading Radicals when they advanced 
in mass? 

But if he appeared in the House of Commons as a faith* 
ful Liberal, who passionately believed in this fruitless and 
stupid Bill, and if he was extremely careful in the lobby 
as to the expression of his real views, he was a very 
forceful, diligent, and uncompromising Radical in the 
Cabinet. It was there that he fought his real battle; and 
no political battle against overwhelming odds was ever 
waged with greater courage. He warned his fellow-min- 
isters again and again that they were “ trading on the fast- 
disappearing patience of the poor” ; he told them that the 
country was sick to death of their fumbling and fiddling; 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


284 

he averred that nothing could save them from shipwreck 
but some bold and comprehensive attempt to adjust “ the 
hideous, heathen, and infamous inequalities ” of our social 
system; he threatened the Prime Minister, and attacked 
him on many occasions almost savagely. 

Someone who told the story afterwards said that never 
in the House of Commons had he witnessed finer fighting 
than took place in those Cabinet Councils between the Prime 
Minister and the Home Secretary without the help of ap- 
plause, and with none of the public excitements of debate, 
none of the conveniences of public speaking, and with the 
greater number of the Cabinet decisively opposed to him. 
Maurice fought the battle of democracy, the battle of prog- 
ress, honesty, and courage against the forces of distrust, 
tradition, privilege, and hypocrisy. And although he was 
beaten in so far as the Prime Minister refused to consider 
any other measures but those in the Government programme, 
the Cabinet recognized that a new force had really ap- 
peared at last, and that the days of old-fashioned, easy- 
going, and histrionic Liberalism were drawing to an end. 

Exhausted by the debate in the House of Commons 
and fretted by this secret strife in the Cabinet, Maurice 
was in no mood to appreciate the social functions by which 
Phoebe fondly hoped to establish his claim to the party 
leadership. If she had seemed dull to him in olden days, 
she was now an active irritant. He found it difficult at 
times to sit still when he heard her discussing books or 
describing plays — always in a tone of voice which she 
hoped would reach him and impress him. Her opinions 
were bourgeois in the extreme. She had not the smallest 
perception for literature. She had likes and dislikes, 
prejudices and enthusiasms, but no discernment, no criteria, 
no sense of real beauty and real truth. She read reviews 
industriously, she managed to pick up the vernacular of 
second-rate criticism, and she delivered her judgments with 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 285 

all the force and energy of unconscious ignorance. Often 
it was quite terrible. 

Then there was the matter of her raiment. Alas, the 
poor lady really did not know how to dress, or perhaps 
there was some stubborn remnant of Puritanism in her 
figure which made suitable dresses seem dull and common- 
place directly she put them on; whatever it was, Phoebe 
came to think that brilliant colors, exceedingly large hats, 
and the most fashionable style of garments could alone 
give her that appearance of distinction which she coveted 
with all her heart, for Maurice’s sake. She was appallingly 
and pathetically suburban. 

It is true that at the beginning of her social campaign 
Maurice was extremely pleased with Phoebe. The sudden 
change blinded his vision. Perhaps he was not a very 
discriminating observer of women and their clothes; per- 
haps it was only by contrast that he could decide in these 
matters what was right and what was wrong. Phoebe by 
herself, in her first smart gown, with her hair in the latest 
mode, seemed to him quite a notable figure ; but later, when 
he saw her among the great ladies of the party, he realized 
that she was more than ever in his way — that she was, 
indeed, disastrously in his way. 

Did he remember that she had slaved for him in his 
early days? that her narrowness was at one time a quality 
he admired in her? that all those things which distressed 
him now in her appearance had accumulated in the work 
of her faithful and devoted motherhood ? I am afraid not. 
Politicians do not go back to causes. They live from hand 
to mouth. Maurice only knew that he had climbed by 
prodigious efforts to the rank of a Cabinet Minister, and 
that he was thwarted now, held back, and ruined in the 
consummation of his ambition by this dull, stupid, and ir- 
ritable Phoebe, who was growing every day more vulgar, 
more impossible. 


286 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


One night they gave a dinner-party at which two Cabinet 
Ministers, the editor of a very important review, and the 
most scholarly of women writers were among the guests. It 
was a dinner-party of ten people, and the table (which was 
really rather restaurant-like) seemed to Maurice a distinct 
success. He was pleased and happy. He appeared to his 
guests in confident mood. He liked the feeling that he was 
entertaining these distinguished people so fashionably in 
his own house. 

But half-way through dinner there was one of those 
pauses in which only a single voice is heard speaking. 
And the voice on this occasion was the voice of the schol- 
arly woman writer, who was saying to the editor at her 
side that she thought Arnold might do more for English 
Literature than Saint-Beuve had done for French. 

Phoebe jumped at an opportunity. With a loaded fork 
half-way to her mouth, screwing up her face into smiles 
of enthusiasm, she leaned forward and said: “Oh! I’m 
so glad to hear you praise Arnold. I think the ‘ Light of 
Asia ’ is sweet. It is like ‘ In Memoriam,’ isn’t it, only 
Eastern ? ” 

The lady was very gentle and charming. She replied 
that it was some time since she had read the “ Light of 
Asia.” Phoebe knew that she had blundered ; she saw some 
of the men exchange looks, she glanced up the table, and 
as well as the red-shaded candles would allow her, thought 
that she saw annoyance on Maurice’s face. 

“Have I said anything dreadful?” she asked, forcing a 
laugh. “ I thought you were talking of Arnold. Weren’t 
you? I’m so sorry if I made a mistake.” 

The Cabinet Minister at her side very gallantly said : 
“ I, too, thought it was Sir Edwin ArnoU of whom they 
were speaking; apparently it was Matthew Arnold.” 

“Matthew Arnold?” exclaimed Phoebe. “Oh, I know. 
Yes, of course. The headmaster of Rugby.” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 287 

“ Well, his son,” replied the Cabinet Minister encour- 
agingly. “ Quite a gracious poet, but with too few readers.” 
And he looked up the table, asking some question as to 
whether Matthew Arnold's achievement in such a book as 
“ Literature and Dogma ” was worth the sacrifice of his 
poetry. 

Things of this kind, little faux pas that were really not 
of any considerable consequence, were always happening; 
and the more often they occurred the harder did Phoebe 
steel her heart. She was one of those timorous, diffident, 
overstrung women who come at last in their difficult and 
unwilling fight with the world to brazen things out, who 
really exalt their ignorance in the flippancy of their apolo- 
gies, who make a swagger of their lack in culture, and 
appear to be always perfectly self-satisfied. She gave one 
the impression of regarding really cultured people as arti- 
ficial and affected. 

Mrs. Girshel was an immense comfort. Phoebe went 
frequently to the Girshel mansion, and derived strength 
from the bold materialism and complacent worldly wisdom 
of the rich Jewess. Perhaps she caught from Mrs. Girshel 
that hardness and loudness and effrontery which came at 
last to extinguish the dwindling grace of her modesty. 
She was too busy now for the religion which had helped 
her and in some way had saved her from disaster, even if 
it were a religion almost void of beauty and tenderness. 
She wanted support, she found it in the strength and se- 
curity of Mrs. Girshel’s worldly wisdom. After all, she 
came to think, it is natural to enjoy life; Puritanism has 
been tried and it has failed. Mrs. Girshel’s central idea in 
philosophy was the good effect upon health and temper of 
cheerful thoughts. “ It’s no use brooding,” she used to 
say. And she said that wives lost the affection of their 
husbands by being “ stodgy,” and “ cooky,” and “ frumpy.” 
A wife, said she, ought to keep young, and the only way to 


288 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


keep young was to have a good time and never give way 
to the blue devils. 

It became very difficult indeed for Maurice, as this dis- 
tracting session wore on, to support the burden of Phoebe’s 
increasing worldliness. He had excellent excuses, of 
course, for avoiding her society, and, in truth, he did see 
but very little of the poor lady. However, there were 
occasions when he longed to escape from the House of 
Commons, from office, from club, from dinner-party, and 
from public meetings — to escape from all the irritation and 
obsession of party strife, from the toil and dullness and 
routine of administrative work — to escape from it all and 
rest in the peace of a home that was deeply and endear- 
ingly happy. 

No such home existed for him. 

On these occasions he would sometimes send a telegram 
to Hampstead, asking if he might go there to dinner, and 
in no other house in London was he so easily able to rid 
his mind of its cares. The Kingsfords knew that Ruth 
helped him in his political career; they knew that he had 
the greatest regard for her; and they also knew that she 
admired him and counted him as a friend only second to 
Father Prague. They trusted Maurice, and they did not 
dishonor Ruth even by considering whether they could 
trust her. In this way Maurice and Ruth were allowed 
the greatest imaginable freedom. They sat together quite 
alone in Ruth’s sitting-room, or spent hours together in 
the garden. 

One morning, four men came to breakfast with Maurice 
— a prominent Radical peer, two of the most cynical 
Radicals in the House of Commons, and Girshel, who had 
now tacked himself on to Maurice and was fairly well 
known in the party. They chatted of politics in a rather 
tradesman-like manner at breakfast, entirely ignoring 
Phoebe, who had a bad cold and sniffed horribly ; and then 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 289 

went to Maurice’s study to smoke and discuss a serious 
matter. 

They were in the midst of their discussion when Phoebe, 
dressed to go out, entered the room, pulling on her gloves. 
The peer rose, the two members of Parliament followed 
his example; Maurice and Girshel merely turned their 
heads. 

“ Don’t dislocate yourselves ! ” said Phoebe cheerfully. 
The blue feathers in her hat vibrated as she pulled on her 
gloves. “ I’ve only come, Maurice, to tell you I’m going 
out.” 

“ Oh,” he said, “ all right,” and turned his head round 
again. 

At that moment a sneeze, very violent, overtook the poor 
lady, and to get over the awkwardness of it, she tried by 
various contortions and a shrill note to her ejaculations, to 
make a comic sneeze of it. Three times she sneezed in this 
manner, and then, laughing, dabbing her eyes, and rubbing 
her red nose: 

“Will you be home to luncheon?” she asked. 

Maurice was irritated beyond measure. “ How can I 
tell, how can I possibly tell?” he demanded. “Yes — no; 
what does it matter?” And then to the peer, “Please sit 
down, and let us finish our talk. Shall I he home to 
luncheon? ” he muttered. 

The discussion was continued, and twenty minutes after 
Phoebe’s departure Maurice was alone with Girshel. 

“ Do you know what you ought to do ? ” demanded 
Girshel, standing in front of Maurice, a cigar in his hand. 
He stooped his knees, put his little monkey’s face close to 
Maurice, and said, “You ought to resign directly the ses- 
sion is over, sacrifice everything, every blooming thing, 
and go through the country with one cry, one single cry — 
Down with the Lords!” 

“ I believe you’re right.” 


290 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ Why don’t you ? Look. Until the Lords are out of 
the way, not a single Liberal measure worth a sixpence 
will ever get on the statute book. How can you hope for 
Radical measures ? What’s the use of talking about Radical 
measures? Does a traveler talk about the mint sauce he’ll 
eat with his lamb when he gets to his inn if a two-headed 
tiger is standing in his path? My boy, you’ve got to down 
the Lords — down ’em — before you can move an inch. 
That’s your trump card. Play it. Get it out and slam it 
down on the table. Go to the country; tell ’em the truth; 
and don’t come back till you’re at the head of a Radical 
Party.” 

“ You’re perfectly right.” 

“My boy, I know I am! You’re not only losing time 
now, you’re losing reputation. You’re not the great agi- 
tator you were ; you’re not the people’s demagogue. What 
will you be five years hence? Just a formal critic of a 
Tory Government ! ” 

“ I’ve thought of that cry. Down with the Lords, and 
Housing Reform ! The two together. But — well, it means 
money. To be frank, I can’t afford it. My expenses are 
increasing. I’ve got nothing but my salary. If I resign I 
shall be a beggar.” 

“ Look here, Sangster, why do you talk like a fool ? ” 
demanded Girshel, stooping again, and laying a hand on 
Maurice’s arm. “ Who’s your father-in-law ? Humphry 
Champness. Good! Who’s Humphry Champness? A 
millionaire ! ” 

Maurice opened his eyes. “ A millionaire ? ” he ex- 
claimed. A light flashed in his soul. 

“ Of course he is,” laughed Girshel. “ Don’t you know 
how money doubles itself? Why, that old fellow’s capital 
has been growing for the last ten years like mustard and 
cress. He simply sits still and watches it. You know his 
secretary — Jiggens? They had a quarrel; Champness de- 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


291 


graded him and put him in an inferior position; Eve got 
him now. A drunken, clever fellow. He tells me about 
old Champness. How much does that old fellow spend? 
A thousand a year, perhaps ; say two, to be on the safe side. 
And what does he do with the balance? Invests it at 
seven, eight, ten per cent. Suppose he invested seventy 
thousand pounds last year at only six per cent. What has 
it grown to now? Seventy-four thousand pounds odd. 
And he invests that at eight per cent., and so on, and so on. 
Savings, mind you, just his savings! The capital’s doubling 
itself all the time — compound interest! Why, he’s as rich 
as I am, without working for it — richer, perhaps; and he 
spends a thousand a year.” 

It had never occurred to Maurice that old Champness 
in Clapham was prodigiously rich. A millionaire! Was 
it really possible? His mind busied itself with a hundred 
schemes. 

“You heard what he said to his son at that joke-dinner 
he gave us ? ” continued Girshel. “ The money is not going 
his way. Who else is there ? ” 

“ That’s all very well, but we aren’t on the best of terms.” 

“ Whose fault is that? ” 

“You mean that I could mend matters?” 

“ Of course I do. Why, my dear boy, the cards are all 
in your hands — you’ve only got to play them. What is 
the old man’s madness? The bee in his bonnet, I mean? 
Rome, isn’t it? Very good. He’s getting worse on this 
head every year. He hates Rome. He hates priests. So 
do I; but I’m not crazy on the subject; he is. Now, it’s 
a very good thing for you he is crazy on the subject. Why? 
Because you can work him on it. It's the one weak spot in 
a soul of iron. Who was the chap with the tender heel? 
Hector or Ajax or Julius Caesar, or somebody. Well, any- 
way, Rome plays the part of that heel in your father-in- 
law’s otherwise invulnerable anatomy. God in heaven ! ” 


292 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


he exclaimed, thoroughly roused, “ if I was in your shoes 
I’d be as sure of that million as I am of to-morrow’s 
breakfast ! ” 

“ I don’t quite see.” 

“ Don’t you?” 

“ I can’t stump the country like an Orangeman. Be- 
sides, I’m not prejudiced in the matter. I feel ” 

“ Oh, stuff, man, stuff ! A million of money, and you 
don’t know how to get it! There’s always a way for the 
softest conscience and the stupidest brain where money is 
concerned, always. Now, listen. Everything is in your 
favor. You go down to see him — on business, mind you — 
and you say to him the menace from Rome is increasing; 
but you can do nothing to check it till the Lords are out 
of the way. Is he ready, you ask, to back you for a ten 
years’ campaign against the Lords, at five thousand a year ; 
if so, you’ll resign. Why! it’s as easy as falling off a 
log!” 

When Girshel had gone Maurice set out to walk to 
Whitehall. 

Now, it was one of those mornings when many school- 
boys go most unwillingly to their books and a considerable 
number of old gentlemen walking sedately towards the 
city are visited — so it is said — by a passionate desire to 
play leapfrog with policemen. There were very few leaves 
on the trees, the air was still fresh enough for a light over- 
coat, and the weather had by no means settled down to the 
fact that summer was nearly due. But the sun shone so 
vividly and so cheerfully, the sky overhead was such a 
very blithe blue, the wind was blowing, too, as if it were 
minuet music and not a devil’s hornpipe, and all the little 
sparrows on London roofs and in the branches of London 
plane-trees were chavishing so excitedly after last night’s 
storm and rain, that nearly every single person in London, 
even the rich City men as well as the jolly beggars in the 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


293 


gutters, felt that life was distinctly good, that the world 
could hardly have been made any better if Messrs. Huxley, 
Tyndall, and Herbert Spencer had been given a free hand 
with the protoplasts ; in short, all mankind trusted the 
universe and felt very cordially towards the fortuitous 
concourse of atoms which had produced this particularly 
jolly morning. Maurice felt himself exhilarated. The red 
faces of the busmen, the impudent faces of errand boys, 
the pretty faces of the Misses Kensington going a-shopping, 
the innocent faces of children playing horses in front of 
perambulators, even the happy faces of policemen, postmen, 
dustmen, and workmen — all these faces of humanity seemed 
to greet Maurice and tell him that life had taken a turn for 
the better. 

And he kept saying as he went along, “ A million of 
money, a million of money, a million of money ! ” No 
finer march music in the world, as all mankind agrees. He 
went into a postoffice, and sent a telegram to Ruth. 

There was nothing at the Home Office to detain him. 
Half an hour with the permanent under-secretary, and half 
an hour afterwards with his private secretary, sufficed. He 
left the office, jumped into a cab, and drove to the assigna- 
tion in Hyde Park. 

“ I want to consult you,” he said, “ on a matter that may 
be fairly called life and death ! ” 

“ Something has happened ? ” inquired Ruth. 

“ Will you give me the whole day?” 

“ The whole day ? But what do you propose ? The House 
meets at ” 

“ Come with me. I’ve arranged things. We’ll drive to 
Victoria, take the train to Richmond, lunch at the Star and 
Garter, and then walk to Petersham and back by the river. 
Do come! I want to consult you. It will be like Cap 
Martin again. And it’s such a day! I may not have a 
chance like this for years. Yes, something has happened.” 


294 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


VIII 

In the train he told her his story. He did not say that if 
he resigned he would be living on Humphry Champness, 
and therefore it was not necessary to speak about the pledge 
he would have to give regarding the Roman Church. The 
question presented to her was this: Should he resign and 
go to the country with an unauthorized programme of real 
and honest social reform, or should he cling to office with 
the rest of the Cabinet and wait for the future to decide 
the course of Liberalism? 

While they were in the train she debated this question 
with great seriousness. His career was at stake. She knew 
how precarious was his position in the Cabinet, she 
was aware of how the Whigs disliked him, and she 
was not convinced that the country wanted social re- 
form. 

She asked him of what his unauthorized programme would 
consist, and he told her that he must needs concentrate at 
first on the abolition of the House of Lords. This fright- 
ened her. She begged him to consider how essential was 
a second chamber to democratic government, and also to 
ask himself whether the country was seriously interested in 
the question of the Lords. “ I thought your programme/’ 
she said, “ was to be a programme of social reform — hous- 
ing, fair wages, and shorter hours of toil — but here you are 
at the very outset, tinkering the Constitution, like the Whigs 
and the Tories.” He explained that until the Lords were 
out of the way, social reform could not be obtained ; democ- 
racy, he thought, would understand the necessity of this 
constitutional reformation if it were thoroughly explained 
to them. 

Still she was doubtful and troubled. “No,” she said 


HE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


295 

at last with decision, “ you must not take so great a risk 
for so small a chance of victory.” 

It was awkward for him that he could not tell her about 
the million of money. 

“ No,” she said, “ the risk is too great.” 

But when they left the train and were in the pure air of 
the hills above the river, when the scents of the trees and 
the grass came to her with the full cheerfulness of summer, 
when she found her mind filling with the sense of life as an 
adventure which called for qualities greater and more heroic 
than those which go with acquiescence and routine, and 
when she realized that this man at her side was a great 
fighter and a bad clerk, then she altered her opinion, laughed 
into the face of the sweet morning, and said to him: “ Yes, 
risk everything ! Why not ? I would rather see you 
wounded and beaten than rusting in dull prosperity.” 

At this he began to have doubts and fears. 

Was that cry of the Lords, after all, a cry which the 
country would echo? Perhaps she was right: democracy 
was not interested in a question that must seem to them 
purely academic, which concerned the science of govern- 
ment, not even the slumber of their overworked, sordid, 
and soul-crushing lives. 

She laughed again. “ What does it matter, whether you 
win or lose ? ” she asked him. “ The thing for you is to 
fight. You are not a ruler, you will never be a statesman 
of routine, diplomacy is no more your metier than music 
or mathematics; you are a demagogue, an agitator, the 
voice of the awakening millions. Shout, my friend, shout; 
die shouting rather than live as a whisper. Oh yes; you 
must go to the people. I am quite sure of that. What is 
the verse which sings the faith and courage of the man who 
works for posterity ? ‘ And yet I doubt not ! ’ ‘ Others 

the harvest of our toil shall see ? ’ Oh, but better than that, 
Shelley’s contempt for the coward and the temporizer — 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


296 

‘ the trembling throng whose sails were never to the tempest 
given.’ You are not meant, I think, to sail in small waters, 
certainly not to pull a row-boat up and down the Serpen- 
tine. No; the storm, the tempest, and the risk!” 

She was so happy that she clapped her hands and laughed. 

“ How splendid you are ! ” he cried. 

“ Am I ? ” she asked, raising her head a little. “ But 
everyone is splendid who sees that life is growth, develop- 
ment, ceaseless change. That’s what makes men and 
women lift up their heads. Humanity has been too much 
preached down. We’ve all been thinking too much of our 
duty and our responsibilities. We’ve been afraid to live. 
Dear Queen Victoria has made a seminary of England, and 
the nineteenth century is just a schoolmistress’s curriculum. 
Now we begin to comprehend what is meant by a boundless 
universe and eternal life. We can breathe. We can hope. 
What is better, we can look forward with interest and 
curiosity and delight. It’s so big, so big ! ” 

She was thinking of Father Prague, whose great strife 
with the ultramontanes of the Vatican had just begun. 

“ I believe you are now more of a democrat than I am!” 
he said, looking at her and seeing how the color had come 
into her cheeks. 

“ I’ve got no name for myself except one,” she replied. 

“ A Catholic?” 

“ Yes, a Catholic.” 

“But you are not like most Catholics.” 

“ There are many Catholics who follow the same star as 
I follow. We Catholics are beginning to move, too. We, 
too, are waking. You will see in twenty years ! ” 

“ I thought that Rome never changed ? ” 

“ Are there any walls that can keep out the Time Spirit? ” 
she asked. “ Is there any mop that can brush back the 
Atlantic of evolution? Oh, you are wrong if you think 
error impregnable! I can see now that everything is 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


297 


changing, everything moving into wider and fuller con- 
sciousness of life. There are Catholics in France, Catholics 
in Germany, and Catholics in America who perceive that 
the Church must change because Christ changes — changes 
with every generation. He is not dead, but living! He 
goes with us; He doesn’t look on. That is our discovery. 
That is the wave that is going to carry humanity from the 
nineteenth to the twentieth century.” 

She turned to him and continued : “ But your life, your 
career. What are you going to do with it? I still think 
your cry is a bad one for immediate victory; but do you 
want immediate victory ? Suppose John Baptist had thought 
he possessed the key of Millennium? What a failure he 
had been! Your cry will do if you are honest, and if you 
tell democracy that the way before them is long and toil- 
some ” 

He interrupted her. “ No, it is not long. The distance 
is only the will of democracy itself. That’s my message! 
Democracy is omnipotent. It can get rid of its chains to- 
morrow. Without a shot being fired, there can be in Eng- 
land the greatest revolution in the history of mankind. 
Democracy has only to turn a key already in the lock to step 
out from its prison into freedom.” 

“ Yes, but Democracy has got to want freedom, has got 
to realize that it does live in a prison.” 

They came to the hotel, and while she rested after the 
walk he went and ordered luncheon, choosing everything 
he thought would please her, but leaving to the head waiter, 
for he was not very well informed in such matters, the 
choice of the champagne. 

Yes, he was so elated and excited that he ordered 
champagne. 

While they were waiting for luncheon, they amused 
themselves by watching the carriages and tandems and 
hansom-cabs which arrived from London, bringing fash- 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


298 

ionable people to this delightful hotel above the river, which 
had figured in a novel by Ouida and was regarded as a 
very dashing place by the bloods of the day. 

During luncheon the mood of the place seemed to take 
possession of them. Everybody appeared to be very 
healthy and very cheerful. There was no suggestion of 
languor or boredom. Here and there among the couples 
at small tables Ruth detected the strain, the anxiety, and 
the whispering confidence of a grand passion, but for the 
most part the room was filled with people to whom the 
keen air and the drive from town had given a sharp appe- 
tite, and who were at the tables to eat, drink, and enjoy 
themselves. The fine day had knocked all that nonsense — 
the nonsense of Eros — out of most of those heads. People 
were not sentimental ; they were festive. 

Maurice was evidently recognized by several of the 
guests, for Ruth noticed how often, and in some cases how 
persistently, heads were turned in his direction. She studied 
Maurice’s face more closely. She had never known him as 
the smooth and unctuous youth who attended chapel prayer- 
meetings and who sought to convert everybody with whom 
he came in contact. From the beginning of their acquaint- 
ance his face had been marked with intensity of purpose, 
the impatience of a masterful will, and the strength of 
manhood. But now she saw in his face something which 
she had not deeply observed there before — lines of sharp 
suffering, an expression in the lips of pain, a look of almost 
settled sorrow in the dark eyes. 

She wondered if the toil and excitements of a public 
career had set those marks upon him, or whether there was 
something else in his life which racked his soul. 

It occurred to her that perhaps she had been unwise to 
come to this place with him. The men who stared at him 
were looking also at her — closely and questioningly. Was 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


299 


it unwise ? Could she really afford to do things like 
this? Might it not, perhaps, damage him as well as 
her? 

Then the feeling of cheerfulness, of well-being, returned 
to her; what did it matter? What did anything matter? 
To be free, to take risks, to challenge all the stupid and 
timorous conventions of Society, to live boldly and greatly 
and strongly — this was the existence of the future. She 
smiled in her heart to think of the Mrs. Grundy of Protes- 
tant circles. Catholics had never bowed to that feminine 
saint at least. And Catholics would be freer still ; they were 
the pioneers. A Protestant Sabbath ! How dreadful, 
how appalling, how old-fashioned and absurd! Catholics 
had always led the way. 

She raised her glass to her lips, and just before she drank, 
said to him with a smile, “ To the sail that will be given 
to the tempest ! ” 

He looked up quickly. All the melancholy of his face 
disappeared, but even in the brightness of his eyes and 
the happiness of his smile there was still that look of hidden 
suffering, suffering suppressed and held in leash, which 
had set her wondering. 

She thought to herself, “ He is really very handsome.” 

“ Ah ! ” he exclaimed, quite bitterly, raising his glass and 
looking at her very intently, “ if only you were always at 
my side ! ” Then he drank a little wine, still looking at her, 
and set down his glass. “ Why do I come to you whenever 
I am in trouble? Why is it always of you I first think when 
I find myself at cross-roads? God, how happy my life 
might have been ! ” 

“ You think of me,” she said hurriedly, her face rather 
white, “because I am your very true friend; because you 
honor me and respect me.” 

“ Because,” he said with emphasis, “ you are the only 
friend I possess in the world.” 


300 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ Well, the only friend ; but a friend because I live in 
your honor and your respect.” 

“Friendship such as mine,” he said, “goes deeper than 
that. One can honor and respect at a distance, but friend- 
ship that is vital struggles to break down barriers and to 
get close, close to the very heart of that other and much 
dearer self. It is no use playing with words. It’s no use 
shuffling and making a pretense. I loathe dishonesty. I 
hate prevarication and chicanery. Let’s be honest, you and 
I. Quite honest. Shall we ? ” 

She found it difficult to speak. She found it even diffi- 
cult to take her eyes from his. It seemed to her as she 
struggled to find words that he was throwing a spell upon 
her. How difficult it was to breathe. 

“You bade me take risks,” he said. “ But to take risks 
in politics is nothing. You scorned the temporizer and the 
coward. But the temporizer and coward in politics is less 
of a fool than the temporizer and coward in life. Why do 
we both funk? why do we both shuffle and pretend? We 
are great fighters, outside our own hearts — oh, tremendous ! 
We are quick to charge the world with cowardice and 
temporizing weakness ; but what of ourselves, of our hearts, 
of the center of our lives ? Are you brave there ? Are you ? 
I wonder if you really are as brave there as you would have 
me brave in politics ? ” 

She said to him, “ Did I tell you to be rash and unwise 
in your courage ? ” 

“ Oh, don’t play with words ! ” he cried. 

“ Did I tell you to sacrifice honor? These are not words ! 
Don’t wreck our friendship. Try to value it equally with 
your political career.” 

“ I value it a thousand times more.” 

“ Then preserve it.” 

“ I would not wreck it for heaven and earth,” he said 
earnestly. “ Why, don’t you know that it is the only thing 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


301 


I possess which makes my life worth living ? Do you think 
I would throw that away? That which alone makes my 
life worth living? Why, I should be throwing life itself 
away. I am not such a madman. What do I ask? What 
do I propose? I ask for the utmost confidence of friend- 
ship. That is all. Honest, truth-dealing friendship. I am 
hungry and thirsty for that. I want one great truth in my 
life. I want one absolute reality. I want your friendship 
in its fullness — everything you can give me as a friend — 
your confidence, your uttermost confidence, and the love of 
your heart and soul. Why not? You know that I love you 
above every creature on earth. We only pretend that we 
don’t know that. It is only dishonesty and cowardice that 
keep us as we are. Why should we not tell each other 
frankly what we know is in our hearts ? It would make our 
friendship grander, more beautiful, more honest. That’s 
what I want — honesty, truth. One can’t go on living as I 
am living now. The heart of man is made for confidence 
and faith. Look at my life ! Is there to be no one for me 
in the whole world, out of all the millions of my fellow- 
creatures, to whom I may go and unburden the pain in my 
heart, the grief of my soul, the longing and desire of my 
spirit? Would you turn aside if a man came to you dying 
of starvation ? I will teach you a proverb. Listen. It is a 
heathen proverb, a proverb made by savage people to whom 
we send our missionaries, our suburban moralities, and our 
swindling commercialism. Not to aid one in distress is to 
kill him in your heart. What do you think of that ? ” He 
looked at her, repeated the proverb again, and said quietly, 
“ I am in distress ; my cry is to you.” 

What really touched her, what really appealed to her, was 
the look in his eyes as he uttered this veritable and yearning 
cry of his heart. She seemed to see all at once into the 
awful solitude of his soul. The face of a famished prisoner 
looking through the bars of his prison would have made 


302 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


the same poignant and insurgent appeal to her compassion 
as the face of this man’s spirit straining towards her behind 
the veil of his eyes. He was isolated. He was suffering. 
He was dying in the anguish of his need. He really wanted 
a friend. 

“ I will be honest, then,” she said quietly. “ I care for 
you; I know that your life is difficult. I know also that 
you care for me. I am glad you care for me ; and I am not 
ashamed that I care for you. There ! I am no coward. I 
am quite happy and unafraid. Are you satisfied ? ” 

“ Say that you know I love you.” 

“ I know you love me.” 

“ Will you say ” 

“Yes; I love you.” 

Such a light came into his eyes that she was frightened. 

“ I love you,” she made haste to add, “ as a very dear 
friend, as a friend whose honor I would preserve, as a 
friend who deserves my love because he is brave, because 
he is a man of honor.” 

He put his napkin on the table. “ You love me,” he said. 
“ That is enough. Now, let us go.” 

When they were in the Park he told her that from that 
day he was born a new man. Life had now opened definite 
gates to him. He was going out to conquer the world. 
“You have given me,” he said, “a new and greater life; 
because you have not killed me in your heart.” 

“ So long as our friendship is true friendship,” she re- 
plied, “ we shall be happy.” 

“ Love such as mine,” he answered, “ could not play the 
traitor.” 

They walked together under the trees, and for the first 
time in all their long and close intimacy he spoke frankly 
of his home life. At first she was unwilling to hear him 
and begged him not to speak of those things ; but he assured 
her he would say nothing dishonorable. “ I have played 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 303 

so long, and tortured myself so cruelly, with make-believe,” 
he said bitterly, “ that you cannot tell how pleasant a thing 
it is to feel that one can be utterly true at last. I want to 
tell you everything that is in my heart. I am penetrated by 
the deepest happiness I have ever known just because I can 
be an absolutely true man for the first time since I came to 
real consciousness.” 

He spoke so calmly and so convincingly that she felt she 
could trust him. Afterwards she confessed that she was 
curious to know about his domestic life, and that her real 
sin lay in this unworthy appetite for gossip. Nothing up- 
braided her more sharply than this knowledge that she 
wished him to speak about those things and that as he 
spoke she was gratified by the knowledge of his wife’s 
imperfect sympathy. She shuddered when she remembered 
the jealous gratification with which she listened to his 
recital of Phoebe’s failure to understand him. 

But the real emotion which made her yield to him was a 
genuine and a deep emotion. Unwisely and unworthily 
she might have acted in the beginning ; while there was yet 
time she might certainly have saved herself ; but in the end 
it was impossible for her to think of his wife and children, 
impossible for her to consider the canons of morality, im- 
possible to reflect upon the consequence of sensations that 
were like the flow of a fierce river. 

She had allowed her soul to drift, to be carried dream- 
fully and carelessly on the slow-moving, tranquil, and inno- 
cent tide of human sympathy. It was not till the last 
moment, when the roar of the waters at the great fall came 
suddenly to her ears, that she knew in one wild, frantic 
second of struggling agony of the depths to which the 
river would hurl her. And after that moment it was useless 
to struggle. The slow-moving river, in a moment, was a 
cataract. Oblivion swept over her, body and soul. It was 
like a swoon, like the loss of consciousness. She knew that 


304 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


his arms were about her, that his lips were pressed to her 
lips, that his breath was pouring into her body, that her 
soul was rushing out to greet, to hail, and to hold him for- 
ever in that ecstasy of surrender, that wonderful, passionate, 
and suffering giving of herself to find herself. 

When he drew back his face, released the pressure of 
his arms and, still holding her, his eyes still close to hers, 
asked her if she loved him, she bowed her head and let 
her lips cling to him again. 

All that she had ever longed for in mysticism was in that 
kiss. She felt herself utterly pure and transcendently satis- 
fied. It was the flight of the one to the one — the loss of 
self, the surrender of Ihood, the completion of her separate 
and divided spirit. 

But gradully into her reviving consciousness came the 
knowledge that this kiss was the beginning and the end. 
She raised her hands, forced them quietly under his arms, 
pressed them against his breast, and, drawing back her head, 
strained herself gently away from him. 

“ I must go,” she murmured. “ Let me go. I must go 
home.” 

She looked about her, frightened, suspicious, guilty. 

There was no one to be seen. 

She came closer to him, put her hands on his shoulders, 
gazed deeply, entreatingly, oh, with such agony, into his 
eyes, the eyes that had betrayed her. “ Forgive me,” she 
pleaded, “ forgive me.” 

He would have kissed her again, but she drew clear 
away from him. 

“Have I made you angry?” he asked. “You don’t 
regret ” 

“ Regret ! ” she exclaimed. Then she smiled sadly and 
looked away from him. “ Don’t you know,” she asked, very 
slowly and tenderly, “ that I have ruined our friendship ? ” 

He protested that their friendship had been consecrated 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


305 

by that kiss, that if there were blame, it was he alone who 
was guilty. 

“ No,” she said. “ I am the woman, and it is the woman 
who has been blamed from the beginning of the world — 
rightly, rightly, oh, so rightly ! ” 

She listened to all he had to say; she promised him in 
the end that she would still continue to be his friend; she 
said that her heart was not now so unhappy and distressed 
as it had been at first, but in her soul she was full of 
remorse and bitter sorrow. She said to herself, “ I have 
struck a defenseless woman. I am unchaste forever. And 
I thought I was strong ! ” 

When they were going back to London she said to him, 
“ Do you remember I once told you, warned you, that those 
who seek to alter the world are altered by the world? 
Well, I have been seeking, ever since we first met, to alter 
you, and it is you who have altered me. To interfere with 
another soul is perilous work. Why didn’t I leave you a 
Radical? Why did I try to make you Conservative and 
Catholic? See what has happened? I have become a 

Socialist, and I have lost ” She checked herself. “ No,” 

she said emphatically, “ I will not say that ! I will never 
reproach you. I won’t even reproach myself. We are 
human beings. What we have done could not be avoided. 
We allowed ourselves to drift, till it was too late. That 
is all. We are sorry. Let us put our sorrow, with the 
cause of it, at our backs. Let us forget it. 1 am still your 
friend. We have sealed our friendship by a moment’s 
mistake. And now we must be stronger for it. We must 
be faithful and true friends, who know each other so well 
that they keep watch and guard over their friendship.” 

It was easy for her to tell him this. It was easy while 
he was with her, to believe that it was true. At that 
moment she felt herself untroubled and secure. She had 
found an excuse which her reason approved. 


306 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


IX 

When he left her in London the excessive commotion in 
his brain had died down into a calm that was without 
peace or the promise of peace. He realized that he had 
taken his Eden by violence, and that he was now cast out 
by the angel with the flaming sword. He had tried to 
persuade Ruth that he was unrepentant, that the thing 
which had befallen them was right and beautiful; he had 
assured her with all the force of his being that this ex- 
quisite happiness which had touched his life and trans- 
figured existence for him would only serve to make him 
kinder, more considerate, more tolerant in his home. But 
he knew in his heart — and the more she spoke of her own 
courage and her determination to guard their friendship as 
a sacred and therefore a perilous thing, the more deeply and 
dreadfully did he know it — that his happiness was de- 
stroyed. So long as ever he lived now, he must remember 
his Eden and mourn before the gates which were closed 
against him forever. 

The sun which had lighted this beautiful day, and which 
had brought happiness and cheerfulness to so many people, 
good and bad, among the millions of London, but had 
seemed to mock how many others, who rather desired 
darkness and storm to fall upon the desolation of their 
breaking hearts, was setting now in a glory that could 
neither distress the mourner nor exhilarate the happy. The 
gentle air of the city was filled with light, which could be 
seen falling asleep. The deep silence of the evening, like 
the tolling of a far bell, could be heard even through the 
noise of the city. An infinite quiet brooded over the roofs 
of London and distilled into the hearts of humanity. It 
seemed as if the eternal mother were bending close 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


307 


over the world in her arms, and that London held its 
breath and walked softly, lest it should waken the little 
one. 

This wonderful light, this wonderful stillness, invested 
everything with a sense of everlastingness. The age of 
London appeared to be regarding itself in the mirror of the 
level sun. To Maurice, as he walked towards the House 
of Commons, everything he saw seemed to have been 
standing there forever. He could not feel the sense of a 
beginning, of growth, of decay in the houses, the streets, 
even in the people. Everything, he felt, was there because 
it had to be there ; everybody was moving this way and that 
because it was so ordained from the beginning. In reality, 
they had always been moving in that way, and these houses 
had always been standing, these roads had always been laid, 
these vehicles had always been passing from the beginning 
of time, and they would continue forever. Nothing would 
ever change. 

He noticed two clergymen hurrying forward, arm-in- 
arm, talking intently. He felt pity for them, saying to 
himself : “ They can change nothing.” He saw a harlot 
walking briskly, and afraid of the police, and covering her 
disappointment because the man whom she followed had 
bid her begone; and he was sorry for her, saying: “ From 
the beginning you have been there ! ” He saw crippled and 
deformed humanity bearing great burdens ; health and 
strength cushioned in carriages ; prosperity and vice reeling 
from taverns; virtue and modesty shabby in the gutters; 
animals who were starved, tired, and ill-treated. He saw 
boyhood and girlhood coarsening into hardness and cyni- 
cism, respectability going by hard and truculent, angered 
unemployed labor that said with its vindictive eyes, “ I 
suffer — why shouldn’t you ? ” motherhood that was hideous 
and base, toil that was content with its mean reward, sin 
that was not afraid, degradation that was unashamed, and 


3 o8 THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

childhood that was joyless — and he was neither indignant 
nor sorrowful. 

He said to himself : “ It has always been so, and so it 
will be to the end. This street has never been without a 
harlot, labor has always suffered here, priests have always 
been praying in that church, these taverns have always been 
ruining men and women, children have always wandered 
here filthy and in rags, animals have broken their hearts 
here. We can do nothing to alter destiny. There are strings 
to this human puppet-show which our laws cannot reach 
and our prayers cannot change.” 

When he crossed Palace Yard the hour was drawing 
towards seven o’clock. Lamps were lighted, and shone 
with a dead whiteness in the lilac-colored air. It was 
beginning to feel cold. A few carriages were drawn up in 
the Yard, the coachmen laughing and talking together, 
some of them smoking. A very dilapidated cab had just 
set down a member at the entrance, and the driver, who 
was grumbling over his fare, was being told to move off 
by the policeman on duty. Pigeons ran before Maurice’s 
feet as he crossed the Yard. The policeman saluted with 
a brisk smartness that was full of deference for the Cabinet 
Minister. 

Maurice thought to himself : “ I am going back to my 
servitude.” 

He had forgotten altogether the brave tune to which he 
had marched so finely when he first set out. The million 
of Humphry Champness had ceased to exist. He was not 
even conscious of the kiss which had lifted him for one 
inexpressible moment into the very center of Paradise. 
He was aware of nothing but an immovable dullness which 
loomed through the universal gray of everlasting monotony, 
and which drew him towards it with the irresistible attrac- 
tion of destiny. 

He walked down the narrow corridors leading to the 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


309 


members’ lobby, and overtook the man who had been set 
down by the cab. He passed him without speaking, but 
stopped when he was hailed, and accommodated himself to 
the slower pace of this friendly Conservative. They ad- 
vanced together, talking of the fine weather. 

A roar, such as one hears in a menagerie, suddenly burst 
upon their ears — a loud, passionate, hideous, and tigerish 
roar of triumph that had no pity for the defeated. 

“ Hello ! ” cried the Conservative ; “ what’s that ? By 
thunder, I believe you’re beaten ! ” 

They both hurried forward. 

Maurice made his way through the pack of shouting and 
cheering members in the lobby, and got round as quickly 
as he could to the Prime Minister’s room. Half an hour 
later he left the House of Commons, knowing something 
that the victorious Conservatives did not know. 

The Prime Minister had told his colleagues that he 
would not come back. 

He dispatched a telegram to Ruth with the news of the 
Government’s defeat, and then hurried into a cab and drove 
home. The first thing to be done, he told himself, was to 
send Phoebe to her father. It was not now a case of in- 
heriting the million of money; it was a matter of getting 
enough to live upon. 

Like a bolt from heaven this thing had fallen — this thing 
which meant poverty. He ground his teeth together, think- 
ing of the election. His seat was safe, but to win it meant 
hundreds of pounds. Money! How could he get money? 
There was Girshel, but that was dangerous. Girshel was 
not a man he would willingly have for master. Humphry? 
Phoebe? Phoebe? Yes, if she could move that old man. 
Everything turned upon Phoebe. Would she succeed? 
How stupid she was! How easily she blundered things! 
Could he trust her? Would it be better to take the bull 
by the horns and go himself? Phoebe was such a fool. 


3io 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


He leaned over the doors of the cab, and looked at the 
crowds he was overtaking and the crowds who were ap- 
proaching him. How full the streets were! People were 
flocking into London from the suburbs, full of expectation 
and excitement, and people were hurrying out of London 
after their day’s work, glad to be going home. What a 
vast host it was, this population of London ! Through the 
gray streets, lighted by lamps, and blazing at certain points 
where a tavern broke the dark line of shuttered shops, the 
dim energetic multitude moved with the quickness and the 
intensity of a flooding river. He saw how crowded were 
the busses inside and out, and noticed how silently and 
unexcitedly the passengers inside read their newspapers, 
or stared at each others, or looked through the doorway 
at his approaching cab. Did any of them care a jot that 
the Government had fallen? Would this awful catastrophe, 
which threatened his life with shipwreck, make any real 
difference to a single individual of all these millions hurry- 
ing to get home or hurrying to the excitement of theater 
and music hall? He saw the placards of newspapers an- 
nouncing “ Defeat of the Government,” and observed that 
they attracted but little attention from the hurrying multi- 
tudes. Did anyone very much care? 

Then his mind went back to the question of the future 
— his future, his own personal future. What a fool he 
had been to neglect old Champness! A million of money! 
Could that really be true ? A million! Fifty or sixty thou- 
sand a year — always increasing, always multiplying itself. 
And Champness was old, an old man nearing the grave. 
Fancy if it were true — a million of money! 

Richmond was blotted out from his mind. The kiss was 
as if it had never been given. He thought of Ruth, but 
only as one who might advise and help him in this crisis. 
A million of money! Would Ruth advise this, or would 
she counsel that? What would be her advice? His tele- 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 31 1 

gram had reached her by now. What was she thinking? 
Would she send him an answer? 

He entered his house with his latch-key, and went to his 
study, turning up the gas. Letters lay on his table, but 
he did not glance at them. He returned to the hall, passed 
the dining-room, the door of which was open, and made 
his way to the drawing-room. The sound of his children 
playing in the breakfast-room below came to him from the 
back-stairs. He opened the drawing-room door. It was 
dark and empty. 

Phoebe was always out. He muttered angrily, and re- 
turned to his study, ringing the bell. 

A servant came to him. “ When do you expect Mrs. 
Sangster back? ” he demanded, lighting a cigarette. 

“ She’s in, sir. She’s ill — very ill with the influenza. 
We’ve had the doctor. She came home just before lunch- 
eon, terribly bad.” 

“ Good heavens ! ” he exclaimed ; “ I had no idea.” 

“ There’s a nurse with her, sir. The doctor says none of 
the children must go to her. It’s a very catching kind of 
the influenza.” 

“ I must go and see her,” he said, throwing his cigarette 
into the fire.” 

He thought to himself as he went up the stairs : “ Sup- 
pose she should die ! ” Then it occurred to him that if the 
situation was to be saved now he himself must go and see 
old Champness. 

At the door of Phoebe’s bedroom he was surprised to find 
how hard his heart was knocking against his ribs. The 
climb of the stairs seemed as if it had exhausted him. He 
waited for a moment to recover his breath, and then tapped 
gently on the panels, in case she should be sleeping. 

After two or three moments the door was very carefully 
opened, and a nurse looked out at him. He heard Phoebe’s 
voice muttering from the interior, and saw the shadowy 


312 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


outline of the bed in the subdued light of a lowered gas-jet. 

The nurse put her finger to her lips, glanced back over 
her shoulder, and then tiptoed into the passage. 

It appeared that Phoebe was in a high state of fever, with 
a temperature of 103 °, and that she was inclined to be 
delirious. The doctor was anxious about her, and would 
be returning in an hour’s time. 

While they were standing there a knock sounded at the 
front-door. The nurse started, looked angry, and begged 
Maurice to see that the house was kept as quiet as possible. 

He went down the stairs, and found a couple of his 
friends from the House of Commons entering his study. 
He greeted them, told the servant to stop, and went to his 
table, writing a card which told callers to ring, and not 
knock. “ Fasten that to the door,” he said, handing the 
card to the servant, “ and keep the door of the back-stairs 
closed.” Then he turned to his friends. “ My wife has 
been taken ill — influenza. She’s really rather bad.” 

Other people arrived, and the room was soon quite full 
of politicians, excitedly debating the situation. 

One of them said to Maurice : “ I understand that the 
old man doesn’t intend to come back. We must see that you 
are in the running for the leadership. But I hear that 
Martindale is first favorite — an enormous backing among 
the Whigs.” 

Later in the evening Girshel came to see Maurice. He 
was pleasant enough while the others were present, but as 
soon as he was alone with Maurice he showed that he was 
greatly annoyed by the situation. “ I’ve wasted my 
money ! ” he exclaimed. “ And the Liberals won’t come 
back for twenty years. Do you know what my wife says? 
She says I ought to join the Tories — the Tory democrats. 
I believe she’s right. They’ve got more go than the Lib- 
erals. I’m sick of Liberals, sick of them ! They’re 
bunglers ! They’re fools ! ” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 3d 

Then he looked shrewdly at Maurice. “ You’re in a bad 
way! ’ he said rather savagely. “What are you going to 
do now ? Leadership of the party ! Why, my boy, you 
won’t even be able to support yourself as the obscurest of 
private members ! You’d better go and see the old man, 
as I told you this morning. It’s your only chance.” 

When he had gone, Maurice sat down and wrote a 
diplomatic letter to Humphry Champness, telling him about 
Phoebe’s illness — her serious illness — and saying not a word 
about the Government’s defeat and his own difficult situa- 
tion. 

It was one o’clock before he got to bed, and it did not 
occur to him as he lay there facing the peril of his position 
that Ruth had not responded to his telegram. 

For three or four days he lived in a state of feverish 
excitement. Phoebe was now better and now worse. He 
wrote a letter every day to old Champness, and he received 
curt acknowledgments, expressing the hope that Phoebe 
would soon recover. He found out that his absence from 
the House of Commons on the fatal day had annoyed the 
Cabinet and angered the party. Some of the Liberal news- 
papers referred to it, and expressed their surprise that the 
only Cabinet Minister to be absent on that occasion was the 
democratic Minister who had been the staunchest champion 
of the Licensing Bill. Some people held the view that, had 
he been present, defeat would not have happened. There 
was no hope, Maurice felt sure, of election to the party 
leadership. The business which obsessed his mind was how 
he could keep his position in the House of Commons — how 
he could live. 

He used to sit by himself, saying over and over again in 
his mind: “ I ought to have foreseen this difficulty; I ought 
to have prepared for it.” It was like a nightmare to his soul 
that so suddenly his comfortable income had ceased. If 
only he had saved money ! If only he had looked ahead ! If 


314 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


only he had foreseen the dislocation of a Government de- 
feat! With such remorse as this in his soul, it was hardly 
natural that he should think of Ruth Kingsford. 

One day he received a note from Humphry Champness 
announcing that he would call at ten o’clock that morning. 
A few minutes before the hour Leonard arrived, telling 
Maurice that his father had asked him to be there. Phoebe 
was better, and Maurice hoped that the situation might 
now be changed. 

Old Champness came into the study, carrying his hat 
in his hand, five minutes after the hour. He shook hands 
with his son-in-law and his son, asked after Phoebe, and sat 
down, placing his hat on the floor and loosening his over- 
coat. 

“ Now,” he said, “ I want to talk business.” 

The other two men sat down, half facing towards him 
from the hearth, and waited for him to continue. 

“You’re in a hole, I suppose?” he said, looking at 
Maurice. 

“ Well, I ” 

“ In a hole, financially ; that’s what I mean. Are you or 
are you not ? ” 

“ I am, sir. Yes, certainly.” 

“ What are you going to do ? ” 

“ I am trying to arrange for some journalistic work.” 

“ Are you?” 

“ It’s the only thing I can think of for the present.” 

“ Haven’t you thought of me?” 

“Of you!” 

“ You’ve been writing me very civil letters.” 

“ I hope you don’t imagine, sir ” 

“Yes, I do.” 

“ Well, all I can say ” 

“ The less you say, the better ! ” cut in old Humphry. 
“You don’t take me for a fool, do you? Of course you 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 315 

thought of me ! Directly the ground went from under you, 
you thought of me. My daughter’s illness was a stroke of 
good luck. I expect you chuckled over it. It gave you the 
opportunity of showing me a little politeness. And you 
played your part well. You didn’t mention your own 
predicament.” 

“ I am sorry you take this view of me,” said Maurice. 

“ Of course you are. It would suit you better if I were 
more easily duped. But don’t be anxious. I’m going to 
help you.” 

He turned to Leonard. 

“ I must deal first with you,” he said sharply. “ I want 
you to know my position, and I want to know yours. Per- 
haps you don’t know that I am a rich man. I have lived 
simply because I have always recognized that money is a 
solemn trust which we hold from God, and for which we 
shall have to give an account. My profits have not been 
spent in profligacy, luxury, and selfishness. I have devoted 
them to the development of the world and the prosperity of 
civilization. I dare say my capital now stands at eight hun- 
dred thousand pounds — something like that.” He wheeled 
round towards Maurice. “ Bigger than you thought, I ex- 
pect. It’s a lot of money, that, isn’t it?” Then he turned 
to Leonard. “ Now, if you want to have the handling of 
this money, or any part of it, you must abandon from this 
moment the Established Church, you must return to your 
father’s Church, and you must give me your solemn under- 
taking that you will remain a Nonconformist to your life’s 
end. I’ve made up my mind. I’ll have no more shilly- 
shally!” 

Leonard drew up his legs, which had been stretched at 
full-length, crossed them, let one of his arms slide over the 
back of his chair, and, looking at his father as if he were 
examining him as a perplexity or a curiosity, announced as 
follows : “ I thought you said that you regard money as a 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


316 

solemn trust held from God. Didn’t you say that? Very 
well, then; how can you use it as you are using it now? 
Do you think that God approves of blackmail ? That’s what 
you are doing. I’m sorry to say it, but you really are. You 
are trying to suborn me, trying to blackmail my soul. When 
you think of that, doesn’t it make you feel ashamed? It 
ought to, you know — it ought really. But I quite see that 
your ideas are not rooted in real wickedness. They spring 
from loose thinking. You have been so busy looking after 
your trust that you have really had no time to think out 
your ideas on other subjects. But you will see now, I am 
sure, that you have made me a very unworthy proposition. 
To relieve you, however, of any further anxiety, let me 
assure you that I have really no desire for money. If you 
gave me any part of your fortune, I should immediately 
give it away again. I believe that our Lord uttered a most 
profound truth when He said that it is impossible to serve 
two masters. I need not discuss my religious ideas with 
you ; but I should like to say, if you will allow me to do so, 
that I think you ought to provide for Maurice so that he 
may continue his political career without financial anxiety. 
You owe that to Phoebe. And Maurice is a fine fellow who 
is really trying to put things right.” 

Old Champness, who had never taken his eyes off 
Leonard, continued to look at him in silence for several 
moments after he had ceased speaking. Then he hardened 
his eyes, drew down the corners of his mouth, and said 
abruptly : “ Very well, then ; that’s settled.” After a moment 
he added : “ I’ve watched that silly look grow in your face 
till every vestige of manful, militant Protestantism had been 
wiped clean out. You’re a Papist. You’ll live to kiss the 
Pope’s toe as surely as I shall protect my money from your 
friends the priests ! ” 

He turned round slowly in his chair and confronted 
Maurice. “I shall find you more complaisant, I expect! 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


3i7 


Eight hundred thousand pounds is a lot of money. It may 
be a million before I’ve finished with it. A man can do a 
great deal with a million of money. Well, let’s see what I 
can do with it now. I’ll try a little quiet blackmailing with 
you. Come, how much do you want for your soul ? What 
will you sell it for? How much shall I have to give 
for it?” 

Maurice attempted to smile, but shifted uneasily on his 
chair. 

“ I’ll make you an offer,” said Champness. “ But first of 
all I want to ask a few questions. Don’t be afraid; I’m 
going to make you a definite and a fair offer. You shan’t 
starve. You won’t have to go back to journalism. I’ll look 
after you. But first of all I want your answer to a few 
questions.” 

Leonard rose, and said: “I will leave you, if you’ve no 
objection.” 

“ I’d rather you stayed,” answered his father. 

“ I have got work to do ; I am sorry, but I must go. 
Besides, your manner distresses me. I can’t help saying 
that. It is dreadful to me that you should speak so very 
sneeringly and brutally to a great man and a good man ! ” 

“ A good man ! ” cried old Humphry. “ What, 
Sangster ! ” 

“ I really think you can’t have said your prayers this 
morning,” said Leonard. “ I’ve never known you like this, 
not really so bad as this. Don’t you think it’s very un- 
worthy? Do try and treat Maurice with politeness and 
charity ! ” 

As he reached the door, old Champness said to him: 
“ Don’t come down any more to Clapham. I don’t want to 
see you again. I’ve done with you.” 

“ Very well, then,” said Leonard, coming back and hold- 
ing out his hand. “ In that case I’ll say good-by. We 
must shake hands.” 


3 1 8 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ Good-by,” said his father, touching the hand for a 
moment. And in this way they parted for the last 
time. 

When the door was shut, old Champness said to Maurice : 
“ That’s a fine son, isn’t it ? What do you think of him ? 
Awkward question for you, that, isn’t it? You’d like to 
run him down to gratify me, but he put in such a kindly 
plea for you that decency forbids! Well, never mind! I 
know you thoroughly. I know what I’m buying. Now, to 
business. How did you live when you broke with Girshel f ” 

“ By journalism.” 

“ Stuff!” 

“ I don’t know what you mean.” 

“ Don’t you know that I was keeping you ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Well, I was. You weren’t earning a hundred a year. 
You left your wife to bear the whole burden of your re- 
sponsibilities. She came to me, broken-hearted. I pro- 
vided for her. You lived upon my money. But for my 
money you’d have gone under.” 

“ I never knew. Those were days of frightful anxiety. 
I’m grateful to you, sir, most grateful. I assure you I had 
no idea.” 

“ How much rent have you paid for this house f You 
don’t know! Phoebe pays it, does she? No. She pays 
nothing. The money you give her is not enough for the 
housekeeping. The house is mine. I bought it. It belongs 
to me.” 

“You simply take my breath away.” 

“ What a position you are in for a man who aspires to 
govern a great country ! ” exclaimed old Champness. 
“ Why, you can’t manage your own house. You’ve been 
living for years upon your wife, and didn’t know it till I 
told you ! ” 

“ But why have I not been told ? ” asked Maurice. 


319 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

Champness smiled. “ Shall I tell you ? Because we 
wished to spare your fine feelings ! ” 

Maurice felt himself go pale. 

“ Mr. Sangster,” demanded old Champness, very slowly 
and emphatically, “ don’t you know that you’re a humbug? ” 

Maurice started. “ No, I do not! You are unjust to me. 
And really I cannot see on what grounds ” 

“ Stop ! ” 

Maurice was almost terrified by the look which had come 
into the old man’s eyes. They were merciless, they were 
relentless and inexorable with some appalling passion of 
lifelong hostility. 

“ Don’t blacken your soul,” said old Champness, “ more 
than you can help.” He leaned forward, resting his right 
arm on his knee, and looked Maurice straight and hard in 
the eyes. “I know you, Mr. Sangster!” he said between 
his clenched teeth, the lips working savagely. “ From the 
first I knew you were a humbug. I got to see pretty quick 
that you were a rogue. But it has taken me a little time to 
discover your true character. I didn’t know that you were 
a dirty rogue!” 

Maurice sprang to his feet. 

“ You insult me beyond bearing! ” he exclaimed, breath- 
ing hard, his eyes shining, his breath coming in gasps. “ I 
won’t put up with it ! It’s monstrous ! ” 

“ Remember the money, eight hundred thousand pounds ! 
Remember that, and sit down.” 

“ You call me the most insulting names. You think be- 
cause I’m financially embarrassed . . . mean advantage 
. . . utterly . . . Good God ! what have I done that you 
should address me like this? Have I lost my honor with 
my income? Am I contemptible and base because I’m 
poor? What happiness do you find in taunting me, insult- 
ing me, treating me with scandalous malignity? I’d sooner 
beg in the streets, sooner die in the workhouse, than receive 


320 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


the favors of a man who assails me as if I had blasphemed 
the Author of my being and set at defiance the moral law 
of civilized humanity ! ” 

“ Sit down ! ” said old Champness. “ I’ll withdraw 
everything I’ve said if you can prove me wrong. Sit down, 
Mr. Sangster. I’m not going to pass judgment on you 
without giving you a chance to defend yourself. And I’m 
going to help you. Put off your House of Commons man- 
ner and sit down.” 

Maurice sat down, crossed his legs, folded his arms, and 
looked away from the old man at his side, frowning into 
the fireplace, his breath still coming sharply and noisily. 

“ This is my first question,” announced old Champness ; 
and then, in a tone of voice more quiet and more deadly 
than he had yet used, he asked: “Where were you , Mr. 
Sangster , on the day when the Government was defeated ?” 

Maurice started. He recovered himself, half turned his 
head, glanced at the terrible face of the old man, which 
was rigid with judgment, and replied, as he looked away: 
“ I was out of town.” 

“ Alone?” 

There was a long pause. 

“Alone?” the old man repeated. 

Maurice was as cold as death, so cold that he shuddered. 
Sweat broke out on his forehead, and his tongue stuck to 
the roof of his mouth. 

“ No ; I was with friends.” 

“That’s a lie!” 

Maurice rose to his feet, but not this time with indigna- 
tion. He found it impossible to keep still. He went to 
the fireplace, kicked at the unlighted coals, turned round, 
and began to walk about the room, his hands clasped be- 
hind him, his eyes avoiding the old man. 

“You were with a woman, Mr. Sangster,” said old 
Champness. 


321 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

Maurice made no reply. 

“ You lunched with this woman at the Star and Garter 
Hotel at Richmond. You drank champagne with her! ” 

Maurice came to the hearth, placed his elbow on the 
mantelpiece, rested his forehead in his hand, and looked 
down at his feet. 

“You were with a woman, Mr. Sangster, with a low 
woman ” 

“ That’s a lie, a damnable and most wicked lie ! ” cried 
Maurice, raising his head. The veins were all swollen in 
his forehead. “ Who told you that ? It’s a lie, a scandalous, 
an infernal lie ! ” He was quivering with rage. 

“Was it somebody else’s wife, then?” demanded old 
Champness. 

“That’s a lie, too!” 

“ Prove it a lie.” 

“ My word is enough.” 

“ Not for me.” 

“ I’ll say no more.” 

“ Answer me ! Who was this woman ? ” 

Maurice, whose brain and heart felt as if they were 
bursting, exclaimed suddenly : “ Who told you this scandal- 
ous tale?” 

“ Who told me ! ” cried old Champness ; and then, watch- 
ing the sharp anguish and swifter terror in the face of his 
son-in-law, he continued: “It’s common property. You 
can read it for yourself in the newspapers. They’re making 
fun of you. * The Cabinet Minister and the Lady ’ ; ‘ Cham- 
pagne and the Licensing Bill.’ It’s a dirty joke in the dirty 
newspapers. Now, tell me, who was this woman? Was she 
or was she not a common prostitute ? ” 

“ Good God ! I tell you, no ! ” How weakly, how feebly, 
how beatenly came this denial! 

“ A married woman? ” 


“ No!” 


322 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


“ Then you must prosecute these papers for libel.” 

“ How can I do that? The lady is a friend of mine. She 
is as pure and virtuous ” 

“ What ! An unmarried woman who makes assignations 
and drinks champagne in a public restaurant with a married 
man ! ” 

“ Yes, as pure and virtuous as any woman in the land. 
Women in society are different. They do these things. 
There’s no harm in them. It’s only the filthy construction 
put upon such things by minds saturated with vice and 
blackguardism ” 

“ Stop ! When you prayed with me in the dining-room 
at Clapham — do you remember? — you would have thought 
it horrible for a lady to drink champagne with a married 
man, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you have said she was no 
better than she ought to be? Wouldn’t you have condemned 
the man as a dirty rogue ? Come now, wouldn’t you ? ” 

“Yes, because I was young, because I didn’t know the 
world.” 

“ You were nearer heaven in those days than you are 
now ! You weren’t very near — you’ve never been very 
near; but you’re clean out of your reckoning now. Mr. 
Sangster, you once called me a Pharisee. Do you remem- 
ber? You sat in judgment on me, and condemned me. 
Dare you condemn me now ? Is your soul white enough, is 
your heart pure enough, is your conscience innocent enough, 
to condemn me now? What has the world done to you? 
You say you didn’t know the world in those days when 
you called me a Pharisee. Are you glad that you now do 
know it? Has it helped you to do your duty? Has it kept 
your heart clean ? Has it brought God any nearer to you ? ” 

Maurice sat down in a chair beside the fireplace, rested 
his elbows on his knees, held his hands to his face, and 
looking at the coals, said between his teeth : “ I am not 
guilty, but I am ruined. I cannot defend myself, because a 


323 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

lady is involved whose honor I must shield. Don’t let us 
waste any more time. Tell me what you propose to do. 
There’s Phoebe and the children. Will you look after them ? 
Make a proposal. Tell me what you mean to do?” 

He was thinking of those newspapers, those terrible gutter 
journals of the sporting world, which find their way into 
every club, every smoking-room, every mess, and every rich 
house in the country. He was ruined. Ruth Kingsford 
had ruined him. 

“ I told you at the outset what I had come here to do. I 
came to buy you, and, like a good tradesman, I have been 
cheapening what I want to buy. I think now that you won’t 
expect me to give much for your soul. What do you want 
for it? Tell me your lowest price.” 

“ Give me two thousand a year,” replied Maurice, without 
altering his position ; “ a thousand for Phoebe, a thousand 
for me.” 

“ It’s too much.” 

“ Good God ! ” cried Maurice, lifting his head, and turn- 
ing swiftly round, “ are you trying to infuriate me ? ” 

“ No, only to humble you. A thousand a year. That’s 
my offer. A thousand a year is a large income for an 
honest man. A larger income would only do you harm. I 
want to protect you. My business is to save your reputa- 
tion.” 

“ A thousand a year! Well?” 

“ I am buying you, as a man buys a barrister. I am 
employing you as my counsel. I want you to put Disestab- 
lishment at the forefront of your programme. Nothing 
about social reform till that is out of the way. I want the 
country roused. You can rouse it. I’ll send Mr. Kensit to 
see you. He will give you the facts. Now, is this to be a 
bargain ? ” 

“ A bargain ? No, it’s a surrender. Don’t you know 
what you’re doing? You’re jumping on the body of a 


324 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


man whom you’ve knocked down and pinioned. I sur- 
render because I’m conquered ! ” 

Old Champness picked up his hat from the floor, and 
got upon his feet. “ As you behave, so I shall behave. 
Don’t forget the eight hundred thousand pounds ! ” 

And he went from the room. 


PART IV 


THE HOUSE OF LIFE 

Seven years after the interview recorded in the last 
chapter, Phoebe, Leonard, and Maurice were taken by 
Aunt Mildred to look upon the dead body of old Humphry 
Champness. 

He lay upon the great brass bed, which looked horribly 
cold and garish, with his arms rigid at the sides of his body. 
He was no longer a big man. The bulk had dwindled from 
his body, the heavy strength had departed from his face. 
There was nothing terrible, inexorable, or solid in this 
pitiful corpse. Only Leonard was not surprised by this 
immense change ; and perhaps in looking at the living face 
of his father he had always seen this expression of pinched 
and narrow littleness which now appeared there, fixed in 
death. The cheeks had fallen in ; the mouth was compressed 
with a hard intolerance; the nose, which was bluish at the 
end, had the sharpness of bitter, unforgiving, and masterful 
pettiness. All the lines were gone. It was a very small, 
smooth, dreadfully insignificant face, white as a napkin. 

Phoebe wept as she looked down upon her father. She 
could not have said, perhaps, why she was weeping. It 
may have been an expression of remorse, for she had en- 
tirely regarded her visits to Clapham for the last seven 
years as insufferable interruptions of a busy and fatiguing 
life. Maurice, placing his hand through her arm, thought 
of all this old man had made him suffer, and wondered 
how much money would come now to reward him for his 
martyrdom. 


325 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


326 

Bitterly had he suffered. Beaten at Bursby, where the 
walls were covered with disgusting pictures suggesting that 
in public he was a Stiggins taking the glass of beer out of 
the workman’s hand, and in private a roysterer drinking 
champagne with overdressed women in flaring restaurants, 
he had gone at the last terrifying moment to the North of 
Scotland, and had found a seat in a constituency too remote 
or too primitive to be influenced by scandal. He was a 
Member of Parliament, but no longer the representative of 
a great industrial center. But not for this reason did he 
find his position in the House extremely difficult. He had 
never taken action against any of the newspapers who had 
maligned him ; and although the House of Commons did 
not judge him severely on this account, or think very much 
of the scandal, it was quite impossible for him to appear 
any longer in the role of a moral reformer. He was advised 
to avoid the limelight for at least one session. 

He set himself to become an expert in procedure, hoping 
to re-establish his position, when the time came for him to 
emerge, as a brilliant master of tactics. While he was 
doing this, a humble member from Wales on the Liberal 
side of the House was swiftly building up a reputation for 
courageous attack and the most thoroughgoing and deter- 
mined Radicalism. Every now and then Maurice was 
obliged by his relentless paymaster to speak in the country 
on the question of Disestablishment, a subject to which he 
had found it difficult to warm. Mr. Kensit was always send- 
ing his card into the House for him. The Liberal Party 
began to regard him as a fanatic with a single idea. His 
debating efforts in the House of Commons, when he did 
emerge at last, were not successful. His place on the front 
bench was not very comfortable. He found himself 
avoided by the aristocrats of the Party, and sus- 
pected by the Radicals. He did nothing to dislodge the 
Tories. 


THE HOUSE OF LIFE 


327 


At the end of his first year in Opposition old Mr. Sangster 
died — dropped dead early one winter morning as he was 
taking down the shutters — and old Mrs. Sangster came to 
live with Maurice and Phoebe. The situation was not an 
easy one. Old Mrs. Sangster disapproved of alcohol, and 
came to the conclusion that Phoebe was often intoxicated. 
Maurice very often cut her short, quite peremptorily, in her 
complainings and grumblings. She fell ill, became an in- 
valid, and a nurse had to be engaged to look after her. 
For nearly four years she was a source of perpetual annoy- 
ance and increasing expense. Everyone was glad when 
the poor old body ceased to exist. 

Six months before the death of Humphry Champness, 
the Conservatives were beaten in a General Election. 
Maurice, with his exchequer almost empty, kept his seat, 
and assured his father-in-law that in a year or two, at the 
very least, a measure for Disestablishment would be intro- 
duced by the Government, in which he hoped to be Chancel- 
lor of the Exchequer. When he called upon Mr. Martin- 
dale, the Prime Minister, in answer to a summons which 
had set his brain racing excitedly, he found that all the 
offices but one were filled up. He was offered the Postmas- 
ter-Generalship. 

And all through those years of poverty, wretchedness, 
and ceaseless toil, he had been without the friendship of 
Ruth Kingsford. She had expressed no wish to him that 
he should keep away from her. She was prepared, appar- 
ently, to go on with their friendship. It is even probable 
that the false step into which compassion had betrayed her 
was responsible for the greater tolerance and the looser 
religious views with which she confronted the world from 
that time. Certainly she lost much of her devotion, and on 
more than one occasion told Father Prague, bitterly and 
cynically, that he did but waste his time in warring with 
the Vatican. But Maurice kept away from her at first be- 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


328 

cause he was afraid and because he was ashamed. He was 
afraid that she would hear of the horrible construction put 
upon the fatal day at Richmond by the lower and baser 
newspapers ; and fearing this effect upon her — fearing, that 
is to say, that it would make her hate him — he deliberately 
avoided her. The contest in Bursby took him farther away 
from her. After his defeat there he was only a week in 
London before he was hurrying to the North of Scotland. 
When he came back, he felt that the friendship had lapsed, 
that it was impossible to renew it. Mr. Kensit was now a 
dog at his heels who made excursions into Catholic country 
very undesirable. 

He met her occasionally, and they exchanged a few 
mordaunt opinions in the company of others, both of them 
uneasy and self-conscious. Maurice, perhaps, never realized 
that he had permanently damaged her mind. Ruth came 
to wonder in the end how she had ever changed her first 
opinion of him. She had been overwhelmed by the most 
bitter remorse at the beginning, but now her punishment 
was the knowledge that such a man had beguiled her. 

Was it too late now, Maurice wondered, as they went 
down the stairs of the Clapham house — too late to restore 
his political status? He was free now of the old dead man’s 
tyranny. With money he could entertain people. Certainly 
Disestablishment would go by the board. But did he still 
possess the energy, the force, the sincerity that can 
even deceive itself, which is necessary for a great political 
leader? And that burning enthusiast from Wales! 

Three days later the will of old Humphry Champness 
was read to the family. 

To his sister Mildred he left an annuity of five hundred 
pounds, and all his furniture and plate. 

To his son, Leonard Champness, the picture of his wife 
which hung beside his bed. 


THE HOUSE OF LIFE 


329 


To his daughter Phoebe the house in Kensington, which 
he recommended her to sell; twenty thousand pounds in 
trust for her children, the interest alone (producing one 
thousand pounds a year) to be at her disposal; and his 
library of religious literature. 

All the rest of his fortune, which amounted to nine hun- 
dred and sixty-one thousand pounds, was left to sectarian 
agencies of the narrowest character, and to various funds 
connected with the Church of which he had been so dogged 
and reticent a member. 

Maurice’s name did not occur in the will. The hatred 
and scorn of the old man was so complete that he did not 
allow himself even a taunt or a gibe. Maurice was as if he 
did not exist. 

We have sometimes wondered whether Maurice’s name 
would not have appeared in the will if he had been able 
to convince the old man during those seven years of bitter- 
ness that he had repented of his sins, that he was no longer a 
hypocrite, that he really and truly did believe in the menace 
of Rome. But this conjecture has never been solved. One 
only knows that Maurice had a hard part to play, and played 
it so badly that he fatigued people. 

When they were going home, Phoebe said to him : “ He 
never forgave you calling him a Pharisee ! ” 

Maurice did not answer. 

“ What a waste of money — hundreds of thousands of 
pounds! It’s positively awful — sickening!” 

She was dressed in the most fashionable mourning of 
the period. There was something in her manner as well 
as in her appearance which might have justified old Mrs. 
Sangster’s opinion that Phoebe was a victim to alcohol — 
one of those respectable middle-aged victims who contract 
the habit at a dangerous time in their lives, and are never 
really aware that they are under a tyranny. 

“Poor Leonard! Not a penny!” she continued. “All 


330 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


wasted on religion, every bit of it. I feel as if I could 
scream. Lady Girshel thought we were going to be so rich. 
I expect she’ll drop us now. Fancy, only a thousand a year, 
and he had very nearly a million pounds ! Just think what 
a splash we might have made with half of it, only half of it ! 
Why, we could have had the time of our life. Sickening, 
sickening! I’d like to burn every chapel to the ground. 
Doesn’t it make you feel you want to swear ? ” 

“ No,” said Maurice, feeling that he could burn the whole 
world, feeling that he would gladly force his innermost 
way into the conflagration of hell to wring the neck of the 
old man who had first made a slave of him and then had 
duped him, “ no, I quite expected it ! ” 

If ghosts laugh, verily the ghost of Humphry Champness 
chuckled as he heard that lie — that lie which surely sealed 
the character of Maurice Sangster in the sight of God and 
the angels. 

From that moment he began a course of self-repression, 
which in time turned him into a cold, icy, supercilious, and 
irritable official whose humanity is destroyed. He was the 
worst Postmaster-General St. Martin’s had ever known. 
He was a pompous and tiresome Minister in power, a small 
and trivial critic in opposition. Every session he lost ground, 
every Parliament he clung to the front benches, but was 
entirely without friends on either side of the House. A 
venture in journalism which he attempted while he was in 
opposition proved a failure; and he blamed the public. 
When he appeared at Phoebe’s tea-table (and Lady Girshel 
remained a kind and generous, if quite destructive, friend 
to Phoebe), he considered that he conferred a favor on her 
second-rate guests. The more he indulged himself in 
cynical opinions, the more highly did he esteem his own 
powers. He was always passing judgment, always finding 
fault, always sneering. He believed in nobody. His chil- 
dren feared him and disliked him. 


THE HOUSE OF LIFE 


33i 


There was one thought in the poor shrivelled and hard- 
ening soul of this man which enabled him to hold his head 
up at the end of his life, and which stiffened him in the 
air of mystery and isolation which he had affected in the 
first instance as a pose of protection. He believed, he 
really believed, that he had sacrificed his political career and 
his life’s happiness to save the honor of Ruth Kingsford. 
“ If I had chosen to speak out,” he used to tell himself, “ I 
should now be the Prime Minister of England.” One could 
never quite forgive him this terrible hypocrisy. 

When the will of Humphry Champness had been read, 
and after he had stayed with Aunt Mildred for nearly two 
hours, helping her in the management of her affairs, 
Leonard left the house in Clapham and walked back to 
London. 

It seemed as if a load had been lifted from his burdened 
mind — as if the will, which left him nothing, had given him 
everything that he desired. His face appeared to be quite 
happy. He walked like one who is glad to be moving and 
has a pleasant goal before him. The gentleness and mild- 
ness of his face had assumed a warmth of kindness, as 
though he loved every living thing and was grateful because 
every living thing conspired to make him happy. His 
father certainly would have said that the “ silly look ” had 
come to stay. 

Only once did his eyes close and his lips harden. It was 
when he thought to himself for a moment of the soul of his 
father. “ So good, so moral, so honest, so straightforward 
and truth-dealing,” he reflected, “and yet so dreadfully 
pagan. Why couldn’t he understand that saying, the publi- 
cans and harlots go into the kingdom of Heaven before you? 
Into the kingdom of Heaven! He never even looked 
through the gates.” 

But his face cleared when he thought how easily those 


332 THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

gates may be missed. “ One must never judge,” he told 
himself. 

He was walking straight to Father Prague. He had 
spared his father the blow of a conversion to Rome. He 
was free now, and his conviction was stronger than it had 
ever been before. 

He said to himself : “ It is perfectly clear to me that Chris- 
tianity means a new life. If it is not new, it is nothing. 
The Methodists were right, and Rome was wrong; there 
must be complete palingenesis, an absolute new birth, a 
vital and pervasive change in the heart of every individual. 
One has got to feel himself born again, really born 
again. Without that no man can enter the kingdom of 
Heaven.” 

And then he thought of the rational objections to Chris- 
tianity which had so long tortured him after his conversion 
to the Anglican Church. How he had suffered ! How very 
nearly he had abandoned it all, and sunk into the indolence 
and indifference of agnosticism! Thank God, thank God, 
he had pressed on ! 

How easy it had seemed to him of late! 

What did it mean? How was a man really changed, 
really transformed by this birth into a new life — a life 
utterly different from the life of the world? It was by 
passionate love and passionate surrender. It was by look- 
ing all the doubts and objections in the face, and saying 
to them: “Yes, I know; you are formidable, and you have 
a great deal — a very great deal — to say for yourselves ; but 
you may be wrong, after all, and in the meantime I am 
longing for something which you cannot give me. I am 
longing for the sense in my soul of a central unity with all 
that lies outside and beyond human experience — for the 
peace which passes understanding, for the strength which 
is unconquerable, for the love which is immortal.” 

Surrender! Yes, glad and delightful surrender. The 


THE HOUSE OF LIFE 333 

loss of self, the giving of self, and the finding of the greater 
self. Unity, unity — unity with the All! 

He said to himself : “ There are two ways, I can see, by 
which a man may make the surrender. He may go to the 
penitent bench of the Revivalist, throw himself down there, 
and cry for mercy. I am quite certain that if I had the 
courage to do that I should experience this change of soul 
which is the new life of religion; but I shrink from it. I 
don’t think it is horrid, as I once thought it ; I don’t think it 
is hysterical or dangerous. If I think unkindly of it at all, 
it is when it seems to me crude — primitive and crude. But 
there is another way — the older way, the everlasting way. 
I go that way. I rise from the great distance to which 
violence, revolution, and schism had borne my soul, and I 
return over the ages and through the ruins of the way, 
back to the Eternal Mother. At Her doors I will make 
my surrender; at Her feet I will lay down my burden; on 
Her bosom I will pour out the tears of my repentance.” 

He passed a young clergyman, whose clothes were too 
well cut, whose hat was too shiny, and who walked jauntily. 
The tone of this man’s voice, as he spoke to the fashionably 
dressed woman at his side, made Leonard think of clergy- 
men whom he had seen in restaurants and ballrooms. “ I 
wish they would behave differently ! ” he thought. And 
then it occurred to him that Aunt Mildred, a faithful Non- 
conformist, was a far more attractive Christian than many 
Anglicans and Romans in his acquaintance. “ What a 
pity,” he reflected, “ that we can’t have a Church composed 
of all the nice, sweet, modest people in the other churches ! ” 

When he arrived at the monastic house where Father 
Prague was domiciled, twilight had gone and night was at 
hand. 

Above the squalor of the street and in the midst of the 
silence of the darkening atmosphere, which seemed to be 
absorbing it into itself, this large, somber, rather forbid- 


334 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


ding building, with its narrow windows, its cheap wood- 
work, and its flat face of yellow brick, rose like a frozen 
Gregorian. Here and there, but with wide spaces between, 
the little windows, which had neither curtains nor blinds, 
showed a light, but no faces appeared there, no shadows 
crossed that yellow glow, and no sound issued thence to 
the sorrowful, sad world outside. The dim building was 
like a deserted tomb in which a few tapers had been left 
burning. 

To Leonard, however, this familiar house had the mystery 
and the beauty and the solemn awe of the narrow postern 
which admits the soul of man to the new life. He glanced 
happily up at one of the windows where a light was shining, 
pushed open the gate, and ascended the steep flight of steps 
to a door, whose wide grille was open, and through which 
could be seen, in the dim light of a single gas-jet, the figure 
of Saint Joseph carrying the Sacred Child. 

He was shown into a chill waiting-room, where a cheap 
and rather gaudy figure of Saint Mary occupied a niche in 
the wall, with a light burning before it, a few little common 
flowers in a glass vase at its feet. 

Presently the lay-brother who had admitted him returned, 
and he followed this dark figure through flagged passages, 
ascended a stone staircase with an iron rail to the second 
floor, and walked in silence down a long corridor until they 
came to the door of Father Prague's room. The sharp, 
metallic noise of the closing of a lid of a tin coal-scuttle 
greeted Leonard as he entered the room. 

“ I am delighted to see you, my dear fellow ! ” said the 
priest, coming forward, pipe in mouth, the coal-scoop in his 
left hand. “ You have deserted me for weeks ; I have 
missed you,” he said, taking the pipe from his mouth. 
“ Come and sit down and talk to me. Tell me about the 
world, the flesh, and the devil ; anything but theology ! ” 
He put the coal-scoop back in its place in the scuttle. “ How 


THE HOUSE OF LIFE 


335 


are the Kingsfords? Have you seen them lately? And 
when is the stupid Government going to do anything? 
Come, here is the tobacco. Now, talk to me, there’s a dear! 
Lots of gossip. A little scandal. Anything. How are you, 
to begin with ? ” 

He seated himself in a wickerwork arm-chair, lay back, 
stretched his legs, and, holding his pipe by the bowl, began 
to draw at it with quick energy to rekindle the tobacco; 
his eyes were shining pleasantly as they looked at his 
friend. 

The room, which had a curtain over the door, was a 
cheerful, cheaply-furnished, and untidy apartment, which 
could have belonged, nevertheless, to no man but a scholar. 
There were some very good Medici prints on the green 
walls, a beautiful crucifix on the writing-table, a vase of 
chrysanthemums on the mantelpiece, and books in disorder 
on the shelves, the tables, the chairs, and the floor. 

“ I’ve had rather a difficult time just lately,” replied 
Leonard, sitting on the edge of his arm-chair, the tobacco 
jar between his knees, his fingers busy filling the bowl of 
his pipe. “ Family troubles, and the end of family troubles.” 

“ The end of family troubles ! Well, that is good, anyway. 
You’re the first man I’ve seen for years who ever told me 
about the end of troubles — any troubles. Why, I thought 
troubles had no end ? ” 

“ They’ve no real beginning,” smiled Leonard, “but 
they’ve all got an end.” 

“ Of course they have.” 

“You don’t see, perhaps,” said Leonard, rising to put 
the tobacco-jar on the mantelpiece, “ that I’m in mourning.” 

“ My dear fellow ” 

“ Oh, but you mustn’t mind. Really, without affectation 
of any kind, I’m quite happy. That oughtn’t to sound 
strange, and it oughtn’t to need apology. Perhaps happy 
is the wrong word; I ought to have said I am quite con- 


336 THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 

tented. Don’t you hate to hear people say they’re 
resigned? ” 

“ Yes, I think I do. But tell me ? ” 

Leonard looked at the Medici print over the mantelpiece 
while he was taking the matches, and then, as he sat down 
again, told the priest that his father had died, and that all 
the long misunderstanding and estrangement were now at 
an end. 

“ I don’t think happy was the wrong word, after all,” he 
concluded. “ I felt exceedingly happy as I was walking 
here because it came home to me that now my father under- 
stood why I had not been able to do as he wanted me to do. 
He was a man one could never argue with; his prejudices, 
which were quite worthy prejudices in a way, were immov- 
able, and he had no opening in his mind for the large 
charities of the spirit. Now he has left his troublesome 
mind behind; he has sloughed his ancestry and his habits 
and surroundings, which made him what he was, and so 
he understands better. I feel quite certain he understands ; 
and he could never have understood here.” 

Father Prague spoke of the great moral qualities which 
Nonconformity has contributed to the world, and said that 
the Catholic Church in the past had suffered by opposing 
this good side of Protestantism with the bad. “ I have no 
doubt whatever,” he said, “ that the day will come when the 
Catholic Church will preach conversion as earnestly as the 
first Methodists or the present Salvationists, but in her own 
way, of course. Conversion is the door, and once through 
the door — Charity and the Mass. By the way, have you 

read ’s article in Quarterly Review? Oh, it’s a great 

thing — a really great thing. It shows the absolute break 
with Newmanism, which all the younger men, of course, 
are conscious of, but which the dear old women cannot 
understand; and it goes on, most boldly, but most ably 
and persuasively, as I think, to reveal the true Catholicism 


THE HOUSE OF LIFE 337 

of an evolutionary religion. Do read it ! I’ll lend you my 
copy, if you promise to let me have it back.” He jumped 
up from his chair, went over to the littered table, and 
returned with the review. 

“ I really must read you a passage,” he said, sitting down, 
turning the pages. His face was smiling with pleasure and 
delight. “Here it is!” he exclaimed. “Now you just 
listen ! ” He read the passage, which was a closely-reasoned 
exposition of Modernism, and then, closing the review, 
tossed it over to Leonard, crying, “ Catch ! ” and then 
laughed, stretching his legs, pulling lovingly at his pipe. 
“ Isn’t that fine, now ? ” he demanded. “ Doesn’t it make 
you feel hopeful for the future ? And my word ! can’t you 
imagine the effect on the Curia ? ” 

They talked for half an hour of Modernism, of books, of 
articles, and of the chief protagonists in the great conflict, 
and then the priest carried off his guest for supper. While 
they were eating this simple meal, Leonard studied the other 
men and felt envious of those whose faces wore what his 
father had called “ the silly look ” — gentle, feminate, re- 
fined, and appealing faces, in which no evidence of struggle 
was visible. He told himself that these men had been born 
in the Catholic Church, that they had inherited no trouble- 
some legacy of stubborn Protestantism, and that they had 
never had to fight with their own souls for an understand- 
ing of spiritual truth and spiritual beauty; they were like 
painters and poets. Refinement was the very essence of 
their being. Worship was the very breath of their spirits. 
They loved. 

Directly he returned with Father Prague to the room up- 
stairs, Leonard said to him: 

“You know that after I left Nonconformity I began to 
be worried by intellectual difficulties ? ” 

“ Yes, of course, I remember. How we used to talk about 
those things ! ” 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


338 

“ Well, I grew to understand the mystical interpretation 
of dogma, and I kept my faith; but for nearly ten years 
IVe been wanting something else. I haven’t been really 
satisfied.” 

“ Ah, my dear fellow,” said Prague, “ which of us can 
be satisfied in an age of reconstruction? You can’t live 
comfortably in a house that is being restored. All you must 
hope for is a corner where you can get away from the 
builders, and where the noise of the hammering is dulled, 
and where you can say to yourself, ‘ There’s a foundation 
under all this mess, so the house won’t fall down, and 
though the rain comes through the roof and the gale blows 
in at the window, still it will be a very much more comfort- 
able house when the job’s done!’ Besides, watching the 
builders at work isn’t such bad fun after all. And lending 
a hand — well, that passes the time and may be useful. It’s 
a good age! I won’t have a word said against it. How 
dare you bring a charge against this so-called twentieth 
century ! ” 

“ You’ve got your corner,” said Leonard. 

“ Yes ; I’ve got my corner.” 

“ Well, I’ve been looking for one all these years. I’m 
not very particular — at least, I don’t think I am, but I 
want a corner where I can lay down the last of my doubts, 
and say, ‘ Here’s my bidance ; and I won’t budge till I go 
hence for evermore ! ’ ” 

Prague examined his face carefully. “ The last of your 
doubts ! ” he said, slowly and quietly. “ There’s no last 
there, Champness. From Augustine to Browning! We 
can’t help ourselves; it’s only the fool whose system is 
complete. We don’t know, and we can’t know. We aren’t 
intended to know.” 

“ Do you believe in conversion ? ” 

“ We are given a thread, we follow a clue, and there’s 
a light on the way ; but that’s all,” said Prague. “ Do I 


THE HOUSE OF LIFE 


339 


believe in conversion? Yes. I told you I did before supper. 
How you forget my memorable sayings, Champness! But 
what has conversion got to do with it ? Do you think that 
doubt is a weed that grows only in the unregenerate wilder- 
ness? You’ll find it in the most careful garden of the most 
convinced dogmatist — under the leaves and at the edge of 
the gravel paths.” 

“ But don’t you believe,” Leonard persisted, “ in a new 
birth, so transcendent and so transforming that the soul 
is never troubled by any of those little doubts any more? 
Don’t you believe in that ? ” 

“Yes, I think I do. Yes, I’m almost sure I do.” 

“ That’s what I’m seeking.” 

“ Yes, I’m perfectly certain I do,” said Prague. “ And 
for some men I’m absolutely sure about it. There is a 
faith to which doubts appear so insignificant that they throw 
no shadow. The man who believes in the Everlasting, and 
who believes in the immanence of the Everlasting, and who 
follows on his road no one but the Living Christ, is never 
dejected by doubt, and he ought never to be dejected by 
the sins of heresy and the sins of orthodoxy.” 

“And it doesn’t matter,” Leonard asked, “whether he 
believes in the Virgin Birth ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Or in the literal interpretation of the miracles?” 

“ No.” 

“ Or in the bodily Resurrection ? ” 

“ No.” 

“It’s a surrender of one’s self to the Higher Self of 
Christ ? ” 

“ It’s exactly the same now,” answered Prague, “ as it 
was in the days when He lived on earth. He asked no ques- 
tions, He put no tests. He made no mention of His Birth, 
and He had not yet risen. He announced the Incarnation, 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


340 

which is the soul of our religion, and He said, ‘ Come ’ ; and 
He said, ‘ Follow/ ” 

“ There was one test, wasn’t there? Believest thou I can 
do this thing ? ” 

“Yes. Good man! That’s quite true.” 

“ That’s what I feel. I’ve been moving in this direction 
for years ; and just lately I’ve seen that there must come one 
great central and wonderful moment when a man, deciding 
that he will ‘ come,’ and that he will ‘ follow,’ says, first of 
all, ‘ Yea, Lord, I believe ’ — with all his heart, mind you. 
That’s what I mean when I say I believe in conversion.” 

“ It’s the spirit of our age,” said Prague, “ the quicken- 
ing spirit. We are not throwing dogma overboard; we’re 
seeking to understand, in the light of rational knowledge, 
what was behind dogma and what is behind it still. You’ll 
find this spirit everywhere. You Anglicans are not alone. 
The young men of the Nonconformist churches experience 
it. They don’t believe as their fathers believed ; they can’t, 
and they’re seeking — but without the Mass to help them — 
another way of expressing their spiritual life. It’s easier 
for Anglicans — easiest of all for them. For us it’s almost 
as difficult as — in some ways it’s more difficult than it is 
for the Nonconformists. We’ve got the Mass, but there’s 
also our College of Cardinals. If we had an English or an 
American Pope it would be easier for us than for you all ; 
but that’s a long way off. Although, mind you, there’s a 
most amazing movement among the Catholics of America 
— most amazing. That’s where I look when I lose heart. 
There’s a mixture of the races there, and the full air of 
political freedom. I’m told that even Italian and Spanish 
Catholics out there are moving towards Modernism, and 
learning to look, with quite other eyes, on the Vatican. Oh, 
it’s a fine age, after all! If men will only stick to it, and 
fight it out! We don’t want conversions to this or that 
Church any more than we want fresh heresies or a revival 


THE HOUSE OF LIFE 


34i 


of sectarian animosities. We want the conversion you 
just spoke about — Yea , Lord , I believe. We want the next 
generation to advance from the point where each man 
happens to find himself towards the larger truth. We want 
all the Churches to move, and at the same time and 
towards the same goal; that’s the future of Christianity — 
that’s the only Reunion that is possible — at any rate, for 
hundreds of years.” 

Leonard was silent for a moment ; then, turning his head 
and looking at Father Prague, he said to him: “ I think, 
perhaps, you are right. I think it will be a good thing if 
men remain where they are and work for the evolution of 
their Churches; but some of us seek that corner of which 
you were speaking just now — some of us have traveled so 
far already, a longer journey than most, that we want a 
home, not a lodging, even if it’s only a corner in the old 
house that’s rebuilding. I’ve been wanting that for years ; 
I’ve only waited till my father could understand it. And 
now ” — he got up slowly, and stood before the priest — 
“ knowing my theological views,” he asked, “ do you think 
I am fit to be received into the Catholic Church?” 

The face of the priest was raised, looking up at his friend. 
At the question put to him so suddenly, he paled, his eyes 
filled with anxiety, and his lips hardened to an expression 
of pain. He did not reply. 

“ Is my faith not sufficient?” asked Leonard. “Would 
it be difficult for you, I mean ? ” 

The priest put his elbows on the arms of the chair, let 
his face rest between his hands, and stared before him into 
the fire. “No,” he said slowly, “it isn’t that, Champ- 
ness.” He paused, and added : “ I think it’s unwise ; that’s 
all.” 

Leonard said quietly : “ Unwise ! ” He leaned against the 
mantelpiece. “ Surely not unwise ! My dear Prague, why, 
I’m simply longing, longing to lay down my burden at the 


342 


THE HOUSE OF DECEIT 


oldest door in Christendom. You don’t want me to rave, 
do you? I’m frightfully in earnest about this.” 

The priest looked up suddenly. For a moment or two 
he regarded his friend with a searching, penetrating earnest- 
ness. “ Do you mean that ? ” he asked. 

“Yes, of course I do. It’s not a new idea at all; I’ve 
lived with it ever since I was worried by doubts. I think 
I’ve been longing ever since I was at Oxford to rest myself 
there, to rest myself at the center of religion.” 

The priest got up from his chair, stood in front of 
Champness, and laid his hands upon his shoulders. “ I’m 
going to tell you a very long and painful story,” he said 
quietly. “ Don’t be alarmed ; it will take a second. It’s 
my story, Champness ; and it’s a story that you must never 
tell to anybody else. You will promise me that.” He took 
his hands from Leonard’s shoulders. “ Now for the story. 
How shall I tell it ? ” He placed his hands behind his back, 
looking into Leonard’s eyes. “ How shall I tell it — in one 
sentence.” Then, with a sudden look of suffering in his 
face, which he half-struggled to smile away : “ For God’s 
sake,” he said, “ stay where you are ! ” 


THE END 


















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